THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 
MRS.  VIRGINIA  B.  SPORER 


IRescue 


IReecue 


BY 


Hnne  Douglas  Sebgwicfc 

AUTHOR  OF  "  THE   CONFOUNDING  OF   CAMELIA  " 
"  THE  DULL  MISS  ARCHINARD  " 


NEW  YORK 

ZTbe  Century  Co, 
1902 


Copyright,  1901,  1902,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 

Published  May ,  1902 


THE  DEVINNE  PRESS. 


TO 

G.  S.  S. 

AND 

M.  D.  S. 


20404GB 


THE   RESCUE 


THE     RESCUE 


i 


.USTACE  DAMIER  bent  his 
long,  melancholy  profile  over  the 
photograph-album.  It  was  an 
old-fashioned  album ;  its  faded  morocco 
cover,  its  gilt  clasp  loosened  with  age, 
went  with  the  quiet  old-fashioned  little 
room,  that  had  no  intentions,  made  no 
efforts,  and  yet  was  full  of  meaning,  with  the 
charm  of  an  epoch  near  enough  to  be  easily 
understood,  yet  with  a  grace  and  a  pathos 
in  its  modern  antiquity  deeper  than  that 
possessed  by  a  more  romantic  remoteness. 
It  was  the  sort  of  little  drawing-room  where 
one's  mother  might  have  accepted  one's 
father:  one  could  not  quite  see  one's  pres- 

3 


THE   RESCUE 

ent  in  it,  but  one  saw  a  near  and  a  dear 
past.  The  gray  wall-paper  with  its  flecked 
gold  flower,  the  curved  lines  of  the  se- 
dately ornamental  chairs  and  sofas,  the 
crisp  yet  faded  chintzes,  the  wedded  vases 
on  the  marble  mantelpiece,  the  books,  well 
worn,  on  stands,  the  group  of  family  sil- 
houettes on  the  wall,  the  cheerful  floral  car- 
pet—  all  made  a  picture  curiously  unlike 
the  early  nineties,  and  fully  characteristic 
of  the  sixties.  There  were  many  flowers 
about  the  room,  arranged  with  a  cheerful 
regularity  ;  the  very  roses  looked  old-fash- 
ioned in  their  closely  grouped  bunches ; 
and  in  a  corner  stood  a  tall  etagere  bearing 
potted  plants  in  rows  that  narrowed  to  an 
apex.  Between  curtains,  carefully  drawn, 
of  white  lace  and  green  rep,  one  saw  a 
strip  of  garden  brilliantly  illuminated  with 
sunlight. 

It  was  in  just  such  a  room  and  in  such 
surroundings  that  Damier  had  imagined 
seeing  again  his  old  friend,  and  his  mother's 
friend,  Mrs.  Mostyn.  He  always  asso- 
ciated her  with  a  sprightly  conservatism. 

4 


THE    RESCUE 

With  a  genial,  yet  detached,  appreciation 
of  modern  taste,  she  would  be  placidly 
faithful  to  the  taste  of  her  girlhood.  The 
house,  he  remembered,  had  been  her  mo- 
ther's, and  its  contents  had  probably  re- 
mained as  they  were  when  her  mother's 
death  put  her  in  possession  of  it.  He  re- 
membered Mrs.  Mostyn's  caps,  her  cameos, 
her  rings,  her  bracelet  with  the  plaited  hair 
in  it,  her  jests,  too,  and  her  gaieties  —  all 
with  a  perfume  of  potpourri,  with  a  nice- 
ness  and  exactitude  of  simile  that  had  not 
attempted  to  keep  pace  with  the  complexi- 
ties, the  allusiveness  and  elusiveness,  of 
modern  humor. 

Mrs.  Mostyn  had  lived  for  many  years 
in  this  small  country  house ;  she  had  en- 
tered it  as  a  childless  widow  after  a  life  of 
some  color  and  movement,  her  husband 
having  been  a  promising  diplomat,  whose 
death  in  early  middle  age  had  cut  short  a 
career  that  had  not  yet  found  an  oppor- 
tunity of  rising  from  promise  to  any  large 
achievement.  After  his  death  Mrs.  Mostyn 
devoted  herself  to  books,  to  her  garden, 

5 


THE   RESCUE 

her  poor  people,  and  her  friends.  Her 
house  was  not  adapted  to  a  large  hospital- 
ity, but  one  of  these  friends  was  usually 
with  her.  Damier,  however,  was  only 
paying  a  call.  He  had  never  visited  Mrs. 
Mostyn ;  she  had  visited  his  mother  in 
London,  and  since  his  mother  had  died  he 
had  been  little  in  England.  Now  he  was 
staying  with  the  Halbournes,  eight  miles 
away. 

The  atmosphere  of  the  room,  as  he 
waited,  the  stillness  of  the  warm,  fragrant 
garden  outside,  combined  to  make  a  half- 
tender,  half-melancholy  mood,  in  which  an 
impression,  quickly  felt,  is  long  remem- 
bered. Such  an  impression  awaited  him 
in  the  old  photograph-album.  It  had  been 
natural  to  see  there  his  mother's  gentle, 
thoughtful  face — first  of  a  round-cheeked 
girl,  looking  like  a  Thackeray  heroine, 
and,  later,  the  face  he  knew  so  well,  fa- 
tigued, sad,  yet  smiling  under  gray  hair; 
natural  to  see  his  father,  with  dreaming 
eyes  and  the  fine  head  of  the  thinker ;  to 
see  aunts  and  uncles,  his  dead  sister,  and 
6 


THE   RESCUE 

himself:  but  it  was  with  the  half-painful, 
half-joyous  shock  of  something  wholly  un- 
familiar, wholly  arresting,  strongly  signifi- 
cant, that  he  came  upon  the  photograph  of 
an  unknown  lady.  It  was  a  faded  carte- 
de-visite,  and  the  small  lettering  on  the 
cardboard  edge  spoke  of  Paris  and  of  some 
bygone  photographer.  The  lady  was  por- 
trayed in  a  conventional  pose  and  without 
modern  accessories,  leaning  one  arm  in 
its  sleeve  of  flowing  silk  on  the  back  of  a 
high  chair,  a  hand  hanging,  half  hidden, 
against  the  folds  of  her  silken  skirt.  She 
was  dressed  after  the  fashion  of  the  late 
sixties,  in  that  of  the  Second  Empire;  yet, 
though  her  dress  spoke  of  France,  as  the 
photograph  had  done,  and  spoke  charm- 
ingly, her  face  was  not  that  of  a  French- 
woman. One's  first  impression  —  not  too 
superficial,  either  —  was  of  a  finished  little 
mondaine ;  but  finished,  poised,  serene  as 
she  was,  she  could  not  be  more  than 
twenty  —  indeed,  as  Damier  reflected, 
youth  at  that  time  was  not  a  lengthy  epoch, 
as  in  ours.  She  was  slender,  the  leaning 

7 


THE    RESCUE 

bust  and  arm  rounded,  the  hand  long. 
Her  face  was  heart-shaped ;  the  dark  hair, 
parted  over  the  forehead  and  drawn  up 
fully  from  the  brows,  emphasized  the  width 
across  the  eyes,  the  narrowness  of  the  face 
below ;  the  lips  were  firm  and  delicate. 
Of  her  eyes  one  saw  chiefly  the  gaze  and 
the  darkness  under  a  sweep  of  straight 
eyebrow.  And  Damier  had  passed  at  once 
through  these  surface  impressions  to  an 
essential  one :  her  head  was  the  most  en- 
chanting he  had  ever  seen,  and  her  eyes, 
as  they  looked  at  him,  had  a  message  for 
him.  Man  of  the  modern  world  as  he  was, 
he  stood  looking  back  at  this  dim,  en- 
chanting face;  stood  trying  to  interpret 
its  message  over  the  chasm  made  by  more 
than  two  decades  ;  stood  wondering  what 
she  meant  to  him.  He  was  wrapped  in 
this  sensation — of  a  spell  woven  about 
him,  of  an  outstretching  from  the  past,  of 
something  mysterious  and  urgent  —  when 
Mrs.  Mostyn  came  in. 


8 


II 


>RS.  MOSTYN  had  changed  little 
since  he  had  last  seen  her  five 
years  ago  in  London.  Her  hair, 
under  the  laces  of  her  cap,  was  whiter;  her 
rosiness  and  plumpness — her  little  hands 
were  especially  fat  —  more  accentuated: 
but  the  gaiety  and  kindness  were  the  same. 
As  much  as  in  the  past  she  entered  into  all 
his  interests:  asked  questions  about  his 
three  years  at  the  English  embassy  in 
Rome,  about  his  recent  travels,  what  he 
had  done,  what  he  intended  to  do.  When 
all  reminiscences  were  over,  all  plans 
discussed,  and  when  Mrs.  Mostyn  had 
sketched  for  him,  with  her  crisp,  nipping 
defmitiveness,  the  people  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, Damier,  who  during  all  the  talk  had 
kept  the  album  in  his  hand,  his  forefinger 

9 


THE   RESCUE 

between  the  leaves  at  the  place  where  the 
enchanted  photograph  had  looked  at  him, 
said,  opening  the  book  :  "  I  have  been  im- 
mersing myself  in  the  past.  Is  anything 
so  full  of  its  feeling  as  an  old  photograph- 
album  ?  fd  sent  le  temps,  and  I  have  made 
a  discovery  there.  Who  is  this  ? "  He  held 
out  the  opened  page  to  her,  and  Mrs. 
Mostyn,  adjusting  her  eye-glasses,  looked. 
"  Ah,  yes.  Is  she  not  charming?  " 
"  She  has  charmed  me.  She  is  won- 
derful." 

"  Her  story  was  certainly  rather  won- 
derful. And  she  always  charmed  me,  too, 
though  I  knew  her  only  slightly,  and  saw 
her  for  only  a  short  time.  I  met  her  in 
Paris  when  I  was  there  with  my  husband. 
She  was  a  Miss  Chanfrey  —  Clara  Chan- 
frey,  a  younger  branch  of  the  Bectons,  you 
know.  Clara  had  come  out  in  London 
the  year  before.  Lady  Chanfrey,  an  ambi- 
tious woman,  had,  I  fancy,  determined  on 
a  brilliant  match  for  her,  and  it  seemed 
about  to  be  realized,  for  Lord  Pemleigh  fol- 
lowed them  to  Paris,  where  Clara's  beauty 
10 


THE   RESCUE 

made  a  furor  —  she  was  thought  lovelier 
than  the  Empress.  As  I  remember  her 
there  was  really  no  comparison ;  she  was 
far  lovelier.  I  can  see  her  now :  one  night 
at  the  Tuileries  —  she  wore  a  white  gauze 
dress  and  lilies-of-the-valley  in  her  hair; 
and  at  the  opera,  Lord  Pemleigh  in  the 
box,  a  hard,  impassive  man,  but  he  was, 
report  said,  desperately  enamoured ;  and, 
again,  riding  in  the  Bois  in  the  flowing 
habit  of  the  time.  There  was  an  air  of 
serious  blitheness  about  her;  yet  under 
the  blitheness  I  felt  always  an  eagerness, 
a  waiting.  She  always  seemed  to  be  wait- 
ing, and  to  smile  and  talk  pour  passer  le 
temps  —  to  make  the  something  that  was 
coming  come  more  quickly.  Poor  child ! 
it  came." 

"  She  married  Lord  Pemleigh  ? "  Damier 
asked,  as  Mrs.  Mostyn  paused,  her  eyes 
vague  with  memories. 

"No  ;  don't  you  remember  ?  He  married 

little  Ethel  Dunstan  —  but  only  after  years 

had  passed.    No  ;  she  did  an  extraordinary 

thing  —  a  dreadful  thing.     She  eloped  — 

1 1 


THE   RESCUE 

ran  away  with  a  French  artist,  a  man  of  no 
family,  no  fortune.  He  was  introduced  to 
the  Chanfreys  in  Paris,  and  painted  Clara's 
portrait.  Very  clever  it  was  thought, 
rather  in  the  style  of  Manet;  a  full-length 
portrait — I  saw  it  —  of  Clara  in  a  white 
lawn  dress  with  a  green  ribbon  around  her 
waist  and  a  green  ribbon  in  her  black  hair, 
and  at  her  throat  an  emerald  locket.  Per- 
haps his  very  difference  charmed  her,  and 
the  distance  that  separated  his  world  from 
hers  made  her  unable  to  see  him  clearly ; 
he  was,  too,  extremely  handsome.  No 
explanations  are  needed  of  why  he  fell  in 
love ;  the  wealth  and  the  position  he  hoped 
through  her  to  attain  were  sufficient  rea- 
sons, to  say  nothing  of  her  beauty.  At  all 
events,  Clara  proudly  avowed  that  they 
loved  each  other.  One  can  only  imagine 
the  storm.  The  Chanfreys  took  her  back 
to  England ;  he  followed  them ;  and  she 
ran  away  with  him  and  married  him.  Her 
family  never  forgave  her.  Her  father  and 
mother  died  without  ever  seeing  her  again, 
and  she  refused  the  small  allowance  they 

12 


THE   RESCUE 

offered  her.  Since  those  days  I  have  heard 
only  vaguely  of  her,  and  heard  only  un- 
happy things.  The  man,  Jules  Vicaud, 
was  a  talented  brute.  With  her  all  had 
been  glamour,  charm,  romance,  the  sense 
of  generous  trust;  with  him  calculation 
and  selfishness.  He  treated  her  abomi- 
nably when  he  found  that  he  had  gained 
nothing  with  her ;  and  he  was  idle,  extrav- 
agant, dissipated.  They  became  terribly 
poor.  It  was  a  sordid,  a  horrible  story ;  — 
a  violet  dragged  in  the  mud." 

Damier  had  listened  in  silence ;  now,  as 
Mrs.  Mostyn  handed  him  back  the  album, 
and  as,  once  more,  the  steady  gaze  met  his, 
"  I  cannot  associate  her  with  the  gutter," 
he  said,  "  nor  can  I  understand  this  vio- 
let stooping  to  it.  I  should  have  ima- 
gined her  too  fastidious,  too  intelligent, 
and,  if  you  will,  too  conventional  to  be 
for  one  moment  dazzled  by  a  shoddy  bohe- 
mian." 

"Oh,"  sighed  Mrs.  Mostyn,  "has  deli- 
cacy ever  been  a  certificate  of  safety  ?  She 
was  fastidious,  she  was  intelligent,  she  was 

13 


THE   RESCUE 

conventional;  but  she  was  also  idealistic, 
impulsive,  ignorant  —  far  more  ignorant 
than  a  modern  girl  would  be.  Her  know- 
ledge of  any  other  world  than  her  own  was 
so  vague  that  the  very  carefulness  of  her 
breeding  made  her  unconscious  of  its  lack 
in  others ;  differences  she  would  have 
thought  significant  only  of  his  greatness 
and  her  own  littleness.  She  dazzled  her- 
self more  than  he  dazzled  her,  perhaps. 
And  he  was,  then  at  least,  more  than  the 
shoddy  bohemian.  He  had  grace,  power, 
—  I  well  remember  him, —  an  apparent 
indifference  to  the  more  petty  standards 
and  tests  of  her  world  that  no  doubt  seemed 
to  her  a  splendid,  courageous  unworldli- 
ness.  And  then  he  came  at  a  moment  of 
rebellion,  pain,  and  perplexity,  as  a  con- 
trast to  the  formality,  the  charmlessness  of 
her  English  suitor.  She  did  not  love  Lord 
Pemleigh  ;  her  resistance  to  the  match  had 
already  embittered  her  relations  with  her 
mother —  Lady  Chanfrey  was  a  high-spir- 
ited, clever,  cynical  woman.  And  then  — 
and  then  —  she  fell  in  love  with  Jules 


THE   RESCUE 

Vicaud;  that  is,  after  all,  the  only  final 
explanation  of  these  stories." 

"  And  she  ceased  to  love  him  ?  "  He 
seemed  now  to  interpret  the  gaze  more 
fully.  Did  it  not  foresee?  Did  it  not 
entreat  —  though  so  proudly  ? 

"Ah,  I  don't  know.  All  I  know  is  that 
she  stuck  to  him,  and  that  she  was  miser- 
able. Poor,  poor  child ! "  Mrs.  Mostyn 
repeated. 

"  And  is  she  dead  ? "  he  asked  after  a 
little  pause  in  which  it  seemed  to  him  that 
they  had  thrown  flowers  on  a  long-for- 
gotten grave. 

Mrs.  Mostyn  looked  out  of  the  win- 
dow at  the  summer  sky  and  sunny  garden, 
the  effort  of  difficult  recollection  on  her 
face. 

"  I  really  don't  know — I  really  can't  re- 
member. So  soon  afterward  my  husband 
died ;  Lady  Chanfrey  died ;  I  came  here 
to  live.  I  heard  from  time  to  time  of  her 
misfortunes  —  of  her  death  I  don't  think  I 
heard ;  but  for  years  now  I  have  heard 
nothing.  How  many  years  ago  is  it? 

15 


THE   RESCUE 

This  is  '95,  and  that  was  —  oh,   it  must 
have  been  nearly  twenty-eight  years  ago." 

"  So  that  she  would  be  now  ? " 

"  She  would  be  forty-seven  now.  If  she 
is  alive  the  story  of  her  life  is  over." 

"  I  wonder  if  it  is.  I  wonder  if  she  is 
alive." 

The  gaze  of  the  photograph,  with  all  its 
calm,  grew  more  profound,  more  signifi- 
cant 

"  Could  you  find  out  ?  "  he  asked  pres- 
ently. 

Mrs.  Mostyn  broke  into  a  laugh  that, 
with  its  cheery  common  sense,  like  a  gay 
cockcrow  announcing  dawn,  seemed  to 
dispel  the  hallucinations  of  night,  recall  the 
reality  of  the  present,  and  set  them  both 
firmly  in  their  own  epoch. 

"  My  dear  Eustace  !  What  a  dabbler  in 
impressions  you  are  !  I  won't  say  dabbler — 
seeker-after." 

"Not  after  impressions,"  said  Damier, 
smiling  a  little  sadly. 

"And  have  you  not  found  anything?" 
she  asked. 

16 


THE   RESCUE 

"  No ;   I  don't  think  I  have." 

"  Neither  a  religion,  nor  a  work,  nor  a 
woman  ! "  smiled  Mrs.  Mostyn.  "  You 
have  always  reminded  me,  Eustace,  of  that 
introspective  Swiss  gentleman  of  the  jour- 
nal. You  are  always  seeking  something 
to  which  you  can  give  yourself  unreserv- 
edly. But  my  sad  little  Clara,  even  if  she 
would  have  meant  something  to  you,  came 
too  early.  She  missed  you  by  —  how  many 
years?  —  fifteen  at  least,  Eustace;  you 
were  hardly  more  than  a  baby  when  that 
photograph  was  taken.  But  she  may  have 
had  a  daughter, —  the  daughter  of  the 
bohemian  and  the  mondaine, —  and  you 
might  find  there  an  adventure  of  the 
heart." 

"Ah,  I  don't  care  about  a  daughter  — 
or  about  an  adventure." 

Mrs.  Mostyn  glanced  at  his  absorbed, 
delicate  face  with  a  smile  baffled  and  quiz- 
zical. She  controlled,  however,  any  hu- 
morous queries,  and  said  presently : 

"  Yes,  I  might  try  to  find  out.  I  might 
write  to  Mrs.  Gaston  ;  she  knows  Sir  Moly- 
17 


THE   RESCUE 

neux  Chanfrey,  Clara's  brother, —  a  man  I 
never  liked, —  and  she  could  ask  him." 

"  Pray  do." 

"  But  I  don't  fancy  Sir  Molyneux  is 
very  easy  to  approach  on  the  subject.  He 
and  his  sister  were  never  sympathetic." 

"  I  wish  you  would  find  out,"  Damier 
repeated. 

"  I  will,  Eustace,  and  give  you  a  letter 
of  introduction  to  her  if  I  ever  find  her," 
smiled  Mrs.  Mostyn. 


18 


Ill 


.USTACE  DAMIER  was  suscep- 
tible and  fastidious,  idealistic  and 
skeptical.  He  was  not  weak,  for 
he  rarely  yielded  to  his  impressions ;  but 
his  strength,  since  nothing  had  come  into 
his  life  that  called  for  decisive  action,  was 
mainly  negative.  Perfection  haunted  him, 
and  seen  beside  that  inner  standard,  most 
experience  was  tawdry.  He  was  quite  in- 
capable of  loving  what  he  had  if  he  could 
not  have  what  he  loved.  The  vacancy 
had  once  been  filled,  but  since  his  mother's, 
his  sister's  death,  it  had  yawned,  oppres- 
sive, unresponsive,  about  him.  He  was 
no  cynic,  but  he  was  melancholy.  He 
had  gone  through  life  alternating  between 
ardor  and  despondency. 

He  was  amused  now,  amused  and  yet 

19 


THE    RESCUE 

amazed,  by  the  extraordinary  impression 
that  the  old  photograph  had  made  upon 
him.  More  than  once  he  had  drawn  back 
on  the  verge  of  a  great  passion, —  drawn 
back  he  could  hardly  have  said  why, —  feel- 
ing that  the  woman,  or  he  himself,  lacked 
something  of  the  qualities  that  could  make 
them  lastingly  need  each  other.  And  now 
it  really  seemed  to  him  that  he  needed, 
and  would  need  lastingly,  this  woman  of 
thirty  years  ago ;  and  surely  she  needed 
him.  She  called  to  him,  and  he  answered. 
He  understood  her  ;  he  loved  her. 

It  was  whimsical,  absurd,  pathetic.  He 
could  smile  over  it,  yet  under  the  smile 
some  deeper  self  seemed  to  smile  another 
smile —  the  smile  of  a  mystery  speaking 
at  last  in  words  that  he  could  not  under- 
stand, but  in  a  voice  that  he  could  hear. 

Mrs.  Mostyn  had  yielded  the  photograph 
to  his  determined  claim, —  laughing  at  his 
impudence, —  and  he  kept  it  always  beside 
him  in  the  weeks  that  followed  his  depar- 
ture from shire.  During  those  weeks, 

that  lengthened  into  months,  no  news  came, 
20 


THE   RESCUE 

and  the  eagerness  of  his  feeling  died  away. 
The  feeling  was  still  there,  but  it  was  like 
an  awakened  and  living  memory  of  an  old, 
dead  love.  He  thought  of  her  as  dead ; 
it  was  best  so,  for  he  could  imagine  with 
repulsion  the  degradation  that  a  harried 
life  in  the  slimier  walks  of  bohemia  might 
have  wrought  in  her  had  she  lived.  The 
sense  of  half-humorous,  half-tragic  pathos 
remained  with  him.  He  smiled  at  the 
photograph  every  day.  It  represented 
just  what  a  memory,  deep  and  still,  would 
have  represented.  It  said  to  him,  "  We 
have  found  each  other.  Now  we  will 
never  part."  And  absurdly,  deliciously, 
he  felt  —  with  an  instinct  that  fluttered 
wings  high  above  any  net  of  reason,  sing- 
ing, almost  invisible  —  that  what  he  had 
missed  was  waiting  for  him  somewhere. 

ONE  day  in  late  autumn,  when  he  had  re- 
turned to  London,  something  happened 
which  changed  the  character  of  this  un- 
substantial romance.  He  met  at  his  club 
another  old  friend,  a  contemporary  of  Mrs. 

21 


THE   RESCUE 

Mostyn's.  Sir  Henry  Quarle  was  a  writer 
of  pleasant  reminiscences,  a  garrulous  and 
companionable  man  about  town,  who  had 
kept  careful  pace  with  the  times,  who,  in- 
deed, flattered  himself  that  he  usually  kept 
a  step  or  two  ahead  of  them :  he  was 
prophetic  as  well  as  reminiscent ;  had  firm 
opinions  and  facile  appreciations. 

He  and  Damier  spoke  of  Mrs.  Mostyn, 
— Sir  Henry,  too,  had  seen  her  recently, — 
of  Paris,  and  of  her  connection  with  it. 
"And  by  the  way,"  said  Sir  Henry,  "  she 
told  me  that  you  were  tremendously  inter- 
ested in  what  she  told  you  about  Madame 
Vicaud  —  Clara  Chanfrey  that  was.  Now 
I  know  a  good  deal  about  that  unhappy 
history,  and  can,  indeed,  carry  it  on  to  a 
further  chapter ;  the  first  did  interest  you  ?  " 

"Tremendously,"  Damier  assented,  feel- 
ing, with  a  beating  heart,  that  daylight 
was  about  to  flood  his  mystic  temple.  "  Is 
she  alive  ?  "  he  added. 

"That  I  don't  know.  But  I  saw  the 
second  chapter  at  close  quarters.  I  went 
to  Vicaud's  studio  one  day.  They  had  been 
22 


THE   RESCUE 

married  only  a  few  years ;  she  was  a  mere 
girl  even  then.  I  never  saw  such  wretch- 
edness." 

"In  what  way?"  Damier's  heart  now 
beat  with  a  strange  self-reproach. 

"Oh  —  not  describable.  It  was  the 
evident  hiding  of  misery  that  one  felt  most, 
the  controlled  fear  in  her  face.  She  was 
lovelier  than  ever,  but  white,  wasted,  her 
delicate  hands  worn  with  work.  The  place 
was  already  poverty-stricken,  but  clean  — 
grimly  clean ;  I  have  no  doubt  she  scrubbed 
the  floor  herself.  Four  or  five  artists  were 
there  —  clever,  well-known  men,  but  not 
of  the  best  type :  the  kind  of  men  who 
wrote  brutally  realistic  feuilletons  for  pa- 
pers of  the  baser  order,  who  painted  pic- 
tures pour  epater  le  bourgeois ;  grossly 
materialistic,  cynically  skeptical  of  all  that 
was  not  so.  One  felt  that,  though  utterly 
alien  to  it  by  taste,  she  could  have  adapted 
herself,  in  a  sense,  to  the  best  bohemianism. 
She  was  broadly  intelligent;  she  would 
have  recognized  all  that  was  fine,  vital, 
inspiring  in  it,  all  that  it  implies  of  antago- 

23 


THE   RESCUE 

nism  to  the  conformist,  the  bourgeois  atti- 
tude. But  the  bohemianism  of  her  hus- 
band and  his  comrades  could  only  turn  her 
to  ice.  It  was  strange  to  see  her  fear,  and 
yet  her  strength,  in  these  surroundings. 
They  saw  it,  too ;  her  chill  gentleness,  her 
inflexible  face,  cowed  them,  made  them 
silly  rather  than  vicious.  Only,  at  that 
time,  she  had  not  cowed  her  husband ;  at 
all  events,  he  seemed  to  take  a  pleasure  in 
showing  his  mastery  over  her,  his  indiffer- 
ence to  her  attitude.  He  was  a  genius, 
with  the  face  of  a  poet  and  the  soul  of  a 
satyr.  She  had  charmed  him  by  her  un- 
usualness ;  he  had  determined  to  have  her, 
to  snatch  her,  the  fine,  delicate  creature, 
from  another  world,  as  it  were,  and  to  make 
her  part  of  his  experience  of  life  in  very 
much  the  same  sense  as  he  would  have  tried 
a  new  kind  of  sin  for  the  sake  of  its  novelty. 
Then,  too,  he  hoped,  of  course,  for  advance- 
ment, pecuniary  and  social ;  the  disap- 
pointment of  that  hope  must  have  roused 
the  fiend  in  him.  Of  course  he  loved  her 
—  if  one  can  turn  the  word  to  such  base 
24 


THE   RESCUE 

uses.  What  man  would  not  have  loved 
her  ?  He  loved  her  as  he  might  have  loved 
one  of  his  mistresses ;  and  I  remember  that 
on  that  day  he  dared — as  perhaps  he  would 
not  have  dared  had  they  been  alone  —  to 
go  to  her  before  us  all,  fondle  her  cheek, 
and,  putting  his  arm  around  her,  kiss  her. 
We  all,  I  think,  felt  the  ugly  bravado  of  it, 
and  I  know  that  I  never  detested  a  man  as 
I  detested  him  at  that  moment.  She  sat 
motionless,  expressionless.  Only  her  eyes 
showed  the  terror  of  her  helplessness,  her 
despair." 

"  Just  heavens  !  "  Damier  exclaimed, 
after  a  silence  filled  for  him  with  a  bewil- 
dering aching  and  despair.  "Why  did 
she  not  leave  him  ?  " 

"Well,"  said  Sir  Henry,  looking  at  the 
tip  of  his  cigar,  and  crossing  his  knees  for 
the  greater  comfort  of  impersonal  reflec- 
tion, "there  was  the  child  —  they  had  a 
child,  a  girl ;  I  never  saw  'it ;  and  there 
was  her  pride — she  had  been  cast  off  by 
all  her  people ;  and  there  was  his  need  of 
her.  A  few  years  after  their  marriage 

25 


THE   RESCUE 

Vicaud  took  to  absinthe,  and  drank  himself 
half  mad  from  time  to  time.  Her  concep- 
tions of  the  duties  of  marriage,  the  sacred- 
ness  of  its  bond,  were,  I  am  sure,  very 
high ;  duty,  pity,  a  hopeless  loyalty,  kept 
her  to  him,  no  doubt.  What  she  went 
through  no  one,  I  suppose,  can  imagine. 

"  I  saw  her  once  again ;  I  was  in  Paris 
for  a  few  days  —  it  must  have  been  more 
than  ten  years  after  that  first  meeting.  I 
met  her  leading  her  husband  in  an  allee  in 
the  Bois.  He  was  a  wreck  then,  his  talent 
gone,  his  noble  face  a  pallid,  bloated  mask. 
He  leaned  on  her  arm,  draped  in  his  defi- 
ant black  cloak.  I  sha'n't  forget  them  as 
they  walked  under  the  October  trees.  She 
was  changed,  immensely  changed.  Her 
stately  head  was  still  beautiful,  but  with  a 
beauty  stony,  frozen,  as  it  were.  There 
was  no  longer  any  touch  of  fear  or  soft- 
ness. When  she  saw  me  she  smiled  with 
all  her  own  gracious  courtesy  —  but  gra- 
ciousness  a  little  exaggerated ;  she  had 
become,  I  saw,  by  long  opposition  to  the 
26 


THE    RESCUE 

life  about  her,  almost  too  ineffably  the  lady. 
She  had  to  keep,  consciously,  the  perfume 
of  life. 

"  I  walked  on  with  them,  and,  perhaps 
as  a  result  of  my  evident  wish  to  see  more 
of  her,  she  asked  me  to  go  back  to  dinner 
with  them.  I  did,  realizing  when  I  got  to 
their  apartment  what  it  must  have  cost  her 
to  ask  me,  and  what  the  pride  must  be 
that  could  do  it  and  seem  indifferent  in  the 
midst  of  that  tawdry,  poverty-stricken,  vi- 
cious existence.  Up  flights  of  soiled  and 
shabby  stairs,  in  a  mean  house,  to  a  miser- 
able room  —  its  bareness  the  best  thing 
that  could  be  said  of  it  —  at  the  top  of  the 
house,  overlooking  a  squalid  quarter  of 
Paris.  There  was  a  harp  in  one  corner, 
and  Madame  Vicaud,  in  answer  to  my  in- 
quiry about  her  music,  said  that  she  gave 
lessons.  The  young  daughter  was  at  school 
in  England,  and  Vicaud's  old  mother  lived 
with  them,  a  spiteful,  suspicious-looking 
bourgeoise  with  a  handsome,  flinty  eye. 
Clara  Vicaud  gave  her  all  the  quiet  defer- 
27 


THE   RESCUE 

ence  that  she  would  have  given  her  had 
she  been  her  equal.  She  had  evidently 
forced  from  the  old  woman  —  forced  by  no 
effort,  but  by  the  mere  compulsion  of  her 
own  unflinching  courtesy  —  a  sullen  re- 
spect. Her  husband  looked  at  her,  spoke 
to  her,  with  an  odd  mingling  of  resentment 
and  dependence.  He  would  say  constantly, 
'  Que  dis-tu,  Claire  ? '  But  he  talked,  too, 
with  the  evident  intention  of  putting  her  to 
shame  before  her  English  guest, —  seeing 
how  she  bore  it, —  talked  of  gallant  adven- 
tures, of  the  charms  of  various  females  of 
his  acquaintance.  She  sat  pale,  mild,  and 
cold.  It  was  like  seeing  mud  thrown  at  a 
statue  of  the  Madonna. 

"  When  she  and  I  talked  together  after 
the  supper  —  one  could  hardly  call  the 
meal  a  dinner — she  did  not  make  an  apol- 
ogetic reference  to  the  ribaldry  we  had 
listened  to.  She  did  not  refer,  either,  to 
any  of  the  friends  she  no  longer  knew. 
We  spoke  chiefly  of  her  daughter,  and  of 
books.  The  daughter  was  evidently  the 
one  ray  of  light  in  her  existence ;  she  told 
28 


THE   RESCUE 

me  about  her  progress  at  school,  her  clever- 
ness, her  beauty.  And  next  to  her  daugh- 
ter, reading  and  music  had  been  her  great 
resources.  I  was  surprised  at  her  scholar- 
ship, at  her  familiarity  with  German  phi- 
losophy, English  poetry,  Russian  fiction, 
French  and  English  literary  and  social  crit- 
icism ;  indeed,  on  the  subjects  of  social 
problems,  of  human  suffering  and  the  vari- 
ous remedies,  economic  and  ethical,  sug- 
gested for  it,  her  knowledge  was  far  deeper 
than  my  own.  But  in  all  our  talk  there 
was  not  a  note  of  the  personal,  the  confi- 
dential, the  regretful ;  she  might  have  been 
sitting  in  an  environment  absolutely  her 
own.  I  never  saw  her  again  after  that 
evening.  When  I  was  in  Paris  some  years 
later  I  went  to  the  house,  and  heard  that 
Monsieur  Vicaud  and  his  mother  had  both 
died  there,  and  that  Madame  Vicaud,  after 
nursing  them  through  their  last  illnesses, 
had  gone.  I  have  often  wondered  what 
became  of  her." 

Damier  asked  no  further  questions,  and 
the  talk  drifted  away  from  the  subject  of 
29 


THE   RESCUE 

Madame  Vicaud  and  her  misfortunes.  But 
that  evening  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Mostyn,  and 
asked  her  if  she  had  not  yet  obtained  for 
him  some  news  of  his  lady  of  the  photo- 
graph. The  photograph  had  for  him  that 
night  a  new  look;  it  still  said,  "I  need 
you,"  but  "  I  need  you  now.  Help  me." 
He  was  convinced  that  she  lived. 

Mrs.  Mostyn's  reply  came  in  a  day,  and 
inclosed  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Madame 

Vicaud,  Rue  B ,  Paris.  "Sir  Moly- 

neux  knew  nothing  of  his  sister's  where- 
abouts," Mrs.  Mostyn  wrote,  "and  it  was 
from  another  source  that  I  found  out  that 
Clara  still  lives,  and  at  the  inclosed  address. 
Do  find  her,  my  Don  Quixote,  and  I  must 
make  her  come  and  visit  me." 

The  inclosed  letter  asked  Madame  Vi- 
caud to  recall  an  old  friend,  and  to  welcome 
Mr.  Damier  for  her  sake  and  his  own.  She 
had  only  recently  had  news  of  Madame 
Vicaud,  and  so  was  able,  happily,  to  aid 
Mr.  Damier  in  his  great  wish  to  make  her 
acquaintance.  She  hoped,  also,  that  she 
might  see  Madame  Vicaud  in  England 

30 


THE   RESCUE 

soon ;  would  she  not  pay  her  a  visit  —  a 
long  one  ?  It  was  a  long  letter,  graceful, 
cordial,  affectionate,  a  rope  of  flowers 
thrown  to  Damier  for  his  guidance  into 
the  labyrinth. 


IV 


GAMIER,  three  days  afterward, 
stood  in  his  sitting-room  in  a 
Paris  hotel,  looking  with  a  cer- 
tain astonishment  at  the  small  sheetof  note- 
paper  he  held,  upon  which  was  written  in 
a  firm,  flowing  hand  —  a  hand  that  seemed, 
though  so  gracefully,  to  contradict  any  im- 
pression of  a  cry  for  help : 

DEAR  MR.  DAMIER  :  I  shall  be  very  glad  to 
see  you  to-morrow  afternoon  at  four.  I  well 
remember  Mrs.  Mostyn ;  to  hear  of  her  from 
a  friend  of  hers  will  be  a  double  pleasure. 

Yours  sincerely, 
CLARA  VICAUD. 

It  was  like  the  evocation  of  a  ghost  to 
see  this  reality,  emerged  suddenly  out  of 
the  dream-world  where,  for  so  long,  he 

32 


THE   RESCUE 

had  thought  of  her,  the  young  girl  leaning 
on  the  chair-back  in  her  flowing  dress  of 
silk.  She  was  alive,  and  he  was  to  see  her 
that  afternoon.  Damier  felt  a  chill  over- 
take his  eagerness.  Was  he  not  about  to 
shatter  a  charming  experience — one  of  the 
sweetest,  most  tender,  most  dearly  absurd 
of  his  life  ?  Would  he  not  find  in  the  real, 
middle-aged  Clara  Vicaud  a  hard,  uninter- 
esting woman  ?  He  had  a  vision  of  stoutly 
corseted  robustness  in  jetted  black  cash- 
mere ;  of  a  curve  of  heavy  throat  under  the 
chin  ;  of  cold  eyes  looking  with  wonder, 
with  suspicion  even,  upon  his  romantic 
quest.  He  could  almost  have  felt  it  in  him 
to  draw  back  at  the  eleventh  hour  were  he 
not  ashamed  to  face  in  himself  such  cow- 
ardice. He  took  out  the  photograph  and 
looked  at  it,  and  the  eyes  of  Clara  Chanfrey 
seemed  to  smile  at  him  with  something  of 
tender  irony.  "  Do  not  be  afraid  of  me ;  I 
will  never  disappoint  you,"  they  said.  After 
all,  what  could  the  mere  passage  of  years 
mean  to  such  a  face  as  that  ?  What  could 
the  bitter  experiences  of  a  sorrowful  life 

33 


THE   RESCUE 

hold  in  them  to  tarnish  ever  the  spirit  that 
looked  from  it  ?  The  reluctance  was  only 
superficial,  a  ripple  of  reaction  upon  the 
deep  tide  of  his  impulse. 

At  four  that  afternoon  he  drove  to  a  long, 
narrow  street  near  the  Boulevard  St.  Ger- 
main—  a  street  of  large,  bleak  houses 
showing  a  sort  of  dismantled  stateliness. 
At  one  of  the  largest,  stateliest,  bleakest 
of  these  the  fiacre  stopped,  and  Damier, 
after  asking  the  way  of  a  grimly  respec- 
table concierge  with  a  small  knitted  shawl 
of  black  wool  folded  tightly  about  her 
shoulders,  mounted  a  wide,  uncarpeted 
stone  staircase  to  the  highest  floor,  feeling, 
as  he  stood  outside  the  door,  that,  despite 
the  long  ascent,  the  thick  beating  of  his 
heart  was  due  more  to  emotional  than  to 
physical  causes. 

He  rang,  and  as  he  stood  waiting  he 
heard  suddenly  within  a  woman's  voice 
singing.  The  voice  was  beautiful,  and  the 
song  was  Schumann's  "  Im  wunderschonen 
Monat  Mai."  Its  pathos,  its  simplicity,  its 
tenderness,  mingled  with  Damier's  almost 

34 


THE   RESCUE 

tremulous  mood,  and  pierced  his  very  soul. 
It  was  like  an  awakening  in  Paradise ; 
there  was  the  remembered  sadness  of  a 
long,  long  past;  the  strange,  melancholy 
rapture  of  something  dawning,  something 
unknown  and  wonderful.  Could  any  music 
more  fitly  usher  in  the  coming  meeting? 

A  middle-aged  servant  came  to  the  door, 
conventual  in  the  demure  quiet  of  her  dress 
and  demeanor,  and  ushered  Damier  into  a 
bare  and  spacious  room  where  the  light 
from  scantily  curtained  windows  shone 
broadly  across  the  polished  floor.  A  woman 
rose  and  came  forward  from  the  piano. 
Damier's  first  impression,  after  the  breath- 
less moment  in  which  he  saw  that  it  was 
not  she,  was  one  of  dazzling  beauty. 

"  I  am  Mademoiselle  Vicaud  —  Claire 
Vicaud,"  this  young  woman  said,  "  and  you 
are  Mr.  Damier.  My  mother  is  expecting 
you ;  she  will  be  here  directly." 

Perhaps  he  felt,  as  she  smiled  gravely 
upon  him,  it  was  the  power  in  her  face, 
rather  than  its  beauty,  that  had  dazzled 
him.  Already  he  discovered  something 

35 


THE   RESCUE 

almost  repellent  in  its  enchantment.  Her 
eyes  were  dark,  with  a  still,  an  impene- 
trable darkness ;  a  small  mole  emphasized 
the  scarlet  curve  of  her  upper  lip;  the 
lines  of  cheek  and  brow  were  wonderfully 
beautiful.  It  was,  indefinably,  in  the  soft 
spreading  of  the  nostrils,  in  the  deeply  sunk 
corners  of  the  mouth,  that  one  felt  a  plebe- 
ian touch.  There  was  nothing,  however, 
of  this  quality  in  the  carriage  of  her  head, 
with  its  heavy  tiara  of  dark-red  hair,  nor 
in  the  dignity  and  grace  of  her  figure  ;  and 
nothing  in  her,  except  some  vague  sugges- 
tion in  this  grace  and  dignity,  reminded 
him  of  the  photograph ;  and  he  was  at 
once  deeply  glad  of  this,  glad  that  Made- 
moiselle Vicaud  resembled  her  father  —  he 
felt  sure  she  did  —  and  not  her  mother. 

She  seated  herself,  indicating  to  him  a 
chair  near  her,  and  observed  him  with  the 
same  grave  smile,  and  in  an  unembarrassed 
silence,  while  he  spoke  of  his  pleasure  at 
being  in  Paris,  at  finding  them  there. 
Damier  himself  was  not  unembarrassed ; 
found  it  difficult  to  talk  trivialities  to  this 

36 


THE   RESCUE 

Hebe  while  thrilling  with  expectation  ;  and 
Mademoiselle  Vicaud,  unable  otherwise  to 
interpret  it,  may  well  have  seen  in  her  own 
radiant  apparition  the  cause  of  his  slight 
disturbance. 

"  But  you  are  not  old,"  she  said  to  him. 

"  Did  you  expect  that  ? "  he  inquired. 

"  Then  you  are  not  a  friend  of  Mamma's 
—  a  friend  of  her  youth,  I  mean  ?  I  don't 
think  that  she  was  quite  sure  who  you 
were." 

"  It  is  only  through  an  old  friend  of  hers 
that —  I  hope  to  become  another,"  Damier 
finished,  smiling. 

"  Well,  flour  commencer,  you  may  be  our 
young  friend  —  we  have  time,  you  and  I, 
before  we  need  think  of  being  old  ones. 
I  get  tired  of  old  things,  myself." 

"  Even  of  old  friends  ? "  Damier  asked, 
amused  at  her  air  of  placid  familiarity. 

"  Ah,  that  depends." 

He  observed  that  Mademoiselle  Vicaud, 
though  speaking  English  with  fluent  ease, 
had  in  her  voice  and  manner  some  most 
un-English  qualities.  Her  voice  was  soft, 

37 


THE   RESCUE 

deep,  and  a  little  guttural.  She  had  a  way, 
he  noticed  later  on,  of  saying  "  Ah  "  when 
one  talked  to  her,  a  placid  little  ejaculation 
that  was  curiously  characteristic  and  curi- 
ously foreign. 

But  at  the  moment  further  observations 
were  arrested.  The  door  opened,  and  ris- 
ing, as  a  swift  footfall  entered  the  room, 
Damier  found  himself  face  to  face  with  his 
lady  of  the  photograph. 

He  blushed.  His  emotion  showed  itself 
very  evidently  on  his  handsome,  sensitive 
face,  so  evidently  that  the  strangeness  of 
the  meeting  made  itself  felt  as  a  palpable 
atmosphere,  and  made  conventional  greet- 
ings an  effort  and  something  of  an  absurd- 
ity. Madame  Vicaud,  however,  dared  the 
absurdity,  and  so  successfully  that  the 
formal  sweetness  of  her  smile,  the  vague 
geniality  of  her  voice,  as  she  said  right 
things  to  him,  seemed  effortless.  Damier, 
through  all  the  tumult  of  his  hurrying  im- 
pressions, comparisons,  wonders,  yet  found 
time  to  feel  that  she  was  a  woman  who 
could  make  many  efforts  and  seem  to  make 

38 


THE    RESCUE 

none.  Her  manner  slid  past  the  stress  of 
the  moment ;  her  wonder,  if  she  felt  any, 
was  not  visible.  All  that  she  showed  to 
her  sudden  visitor,  introducing  himself 
through  a  past  that  must  have  been  long 
dead  to  her,  was  the  smile,  the  geniality, 
vague  and  formal,  of  the  woman  of  the 
world. 

By  contrast  to  this  atmosphere  of  rule 
and  reticence,  the  few  words  he  had  ex- 
changed with  the  daughter  seemed  sud- 
denly intimate  —  seemed  to  make  a  bond 
where  the  mother's  made  a  barrier.  But 
above  all  barriers,  all  reticences,  was  the 
one  fact  —  the  wonderful  fact  —  that  she 
was  she,  changed  so  much,  yet  so  much  the 
same  that  the  change  was  only  a  deepen- 
ing, a  subtilizing  of  her  charm. 

"Yes,  I  remember  Mrs.  Mostyn  so  well," 
said  Madame  Vicaud,  "and  it  is  many  years 
ago  now.  She  must  be  old.  Does  she 
look  old  ?  Is  she  well  ?  Will  she  come 
to  Paris  one  day,  do  you  think?  Ah,  as 
for  my  going  to  England  to  see  her,  that 
is  a  great  temptation,  a  sufficient  one  were 

39 


THE   RESCUE 

the  possibility  only  as  great.  My  daughter 
has  been  much  in  England ;  she  really, 
now,  knows  it  better  than  I  do." 

Mademoiselle  Vicaud  did  not  meet  her 
mother's  glance  as  it  rested  upon  her ;  her 
eyes  were  fixed,  with  their  dark  placidity, 
upon  Damier,  as  she  sat  sidewise  in  her 
chair,  her  hands  —  they  were  large,  white, 
beautifully  formed  —  loosely  interlaced  on 
the  chair-back. 

"  Yes ;  I  know  England  well,"  she  said 
—  "educational  England.  I  went  to  school 
there.  I  associate  England  with  all  that  is 
formative  and  improving ;  I  have  been  run 
through  the  mold  so  many  times." 

"  Run  through  ?  "  Damier  asked,  smil- 
ing. "  Have  you  never  taken  the  form, 
then  ?  "  He  was  not  interested  in  Made- 
moiselle Vicaud,  although  he  felt  intimate 
with  her ;  but  her  mother's  glance  brought 
her  between  them,  placed  her  there ;  one 
was  forced  to  look  at  her  and  to  talk  to  her. 

"  Do  you  think  I  have  ?  "  Mademoiselle 
Vicaud  asked,  with  her  smile,  that  was  not 
gay,  a  slumberous,  indulgent  smile.  "  I 
40 


THE   RESCUE 

hope  not,"  she  added,  "  physically,  at  least. 
I  don't  like  your  English  outline,  as  far  as 
that  is  concerned."  Damier  could  but  ob- 
serve that  hers  was  not  English.  She  was 
supple,  curved  —  slender,  yet  robust;  one 
saw  her  soft  breathing ;  her  waist  bent  with 
a  lovely  flexibility.  But  the  contemplation 
of  these  facts,  to  which  she  seemed,  with 
the  indifference  of  perfect  assurance,  to 
draw  his  attention,  emphasized  that  sense 
of  intimacy  in  a  way  that  rather  irritated 
him;  Mademoiselle  Vicaud,  her  outline  and 
her  exquisite  gowning  of  it,  slightly  jarred 
upon  him.  He  hardly  knew  how  to  word 
his  appreciation  of  her  difference,  and  after 
saying  that  he  was  glad  she  had  escaped 
the  more  unbecoming  influences  of  his 
country,  added :  "  I  hope  that  there  were 
some  things  you  cared  to  adopt." 

"  They  adopted  me.  I  was  quite  passive, 
quite  fluid,"  said  Mademoiselle  Vicaud. 

Her  mother,  while  they  interchanged 
these  slight  pleasantries,  continued  to  look 
at  her  daughter. 

"  You  rather  exaggerate,  do  you  not, 


THE   RESCUE 

Claire,  the  coercive  nature  of  your  English 
experience?"  she  said.  "It  was  not  all 
school ;  there  was  play,  too." 

"  Play  like  the  kindergarten  kind,  with 
a  meaning  in  it.  My  mother  has  always 
been  anxious  for  me  to  take  the  right  im- 
pressions," said  Mademoiselle  Vicaud,  her 
eyes  still  on  Damier ;  "  she  has  always 
chosen  them  for  me." 

There  was  a  momentary  silence  after 
this — a  silence  that  might,  Damier  fancied, 
have  held  something  of  irritation  for  the 
mother,  though  none  showed  itself  in  the 
calm  intelligence  of  her  glance  as  it  rested 
on  her  daughter. 

Looking  from  her  before  the  pause  could 
become  significant  of  anything  like  argu- 
ment or  antagonism,  she  asked  Damier  for 
how  long  he  expected  to  remain  in  Paris, 
and  the  talk  floated  easily  into  cheerful 
and  familiar  channels  —  concerts,  the  play, 
books,  and  pictures. 

She  was  so  much  more  like  the  photo- 
graph than  he  had  expected,  and  yet  so 
different !  The  figure  was  the  same,  almost 

42 


THE   RESCUE 

girlish,  more  girlish,  really,  than  Made- 
moiselle Claire's,  though  the  fall  in  the 
line  of  her  shoulders,  the  erect  poise  with 
which  she  sat,  recalled  a  girlishness  of 
another  epoch,  another  tradition. 

There  was  that  in  the  folds  of  her  long 
silk  skirt, —  a  worn,  shining  silk,  yet  in  its 
antiquity  replete  with  elegance, —  in  the 
position  of  her  narrow  foot  pointing  from 
beneath  its  folds,  in  the  way  she  lightly 
folded  her  arms  while  she  talked  to 
him,  that  suggested  deportment,  a  manner 
trained,  and  as  much  a  part  of  her  as  put- 
ting on  her  shoes  was.  She  was  very  man- 
nered and  very  unaffected ;  the  manner 
was  like  the  graceful  garment  of  her  per- 
fect ease  and  naturalness  —  their  protec- 
tion, perhaps,  and  their  ornament.  As  for 
her  face,  Damier,  looking  at  it  while  they 
talked,  felt  its  enchantment  growing  on 
him,  like  the  gradual  tuning  of  exquisite 
instruments  preparing  him  for  perfect 
music.  Still,  the  face  of  the  photograph, 
so  unchanged  that  it  was  startling  to  feel 
how  much  older  it  was.  The  abundant 

43 


THE   RESCUE 

hair  was  dressed  in  the  same  fashion,  but 
its  black  was  now  of  an  odd  grayness  that 
made  one  just  aware  that  it  was  no  longer 
black.  The  heart-shaped  oval  was  em- 
phasized ;  the  cheeks  were  thin,  the  chin 
sharply  delicate,  the  lips  compressed  when 
she  did  not  smile  —  but  she  frequently 
smiled  —  into  a  line  of  endurance,  of  a 
patience  almost  bitter.  There  were  tones 
of  pale  mauve  in  the  faint  roses  of  her 
lips  and  cheeks,  but  Damier  felt  that  this 
charming  tint  must  always  have  been  theirs 
—  went  with  the  snow  and  ebony  of  her 
type.  Although  her  face  was  little  lined, — 
emotion  with  her  had  been  repressed,  not 
demonstrated, —  it  had  a  look  more  aging 
than  lines  —  a  look  of  bleakness,  of  a  cold 
impassivity.  The  texture  of  her  skin  was 
like  a  white  rose-petal  just  fading.  And 
in  this  faded  whiteness  her  dark  eyes 
gazed,  more  stern,  more  tragic  than  in 
youth.  There  was  in  them,  and  in  the 
straight  line  of  her  black  brows  above 
them,  a  somberness  and  almost  a  menace. 
Damier  wondered  over  the  strange  con- 

44 


THE   RESCUE 

trast  to  her  frequent  smile.  He  saw  that 
where  Mademoiselle  Vicaud  was  still  and 
grave  her  mother  was  light  and  gay,  but 
the  gaiety  and  lightness  —  he  traced  the 
impression  further  —  were  part  of  the 
manner,  the  protecting,  ornamental  man- 
ner ;  were  something  that  had  once  been 
real,  and  were  now  put  on,  like  her  shoes, 
again.  The  daughter  showed  herself,  or 
seemed  to  show  herself,  imperturbably : 
the  mother  was  hidden,  masked ;  her  eyes, 
with  their  contrasting  smile,  made  him 
think  of  Tragedy  glancing  among  garlands 
of  roses. 

Before  he  went,  that  day,  Damier  told 
Madame  Vicaud  that  his  stay  in  Paris  was 
to  be  indefinite ;  had  even  let  her  see,  if 
she  wished  to,  that  she  counted  among  his 
reasons  for  staying.  He  was  sure  that  he 
was  to  go  far,  but  he  knew  that  he  must  go 
with  discretion.  One  thing  discretion  evi- 
dently required  of  him —  to  include  Made- 
moiselle Claire  with  her  mother;  her 
mother  constantly  included  her.  It  was 
necessary  to  invite  them  both  to  drive  in 

45 


THE   RESCUE 

the  Bois  next  day.  It  was  then  that  he 
learned  that  Madame  Vicaud  and  her 
daughter  both  gave  lessons,  mademoiselle 
in  singing, —  she  had  studied  with  the  best 
masters, —  madame  in  the  harp  and  piano. 
Damier  cast  a  glance  upon  the  harp ;  the 
same,  no  doubt.  Hours  of  engagements 
had  to  be  consulted.  They  could  both, 
however,  be  free  next  day  at  four. 


46 


V 


lAMIER  was  able,  while  waiting 
for  them  in  the  salon  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  to  see  more  clearly 
Madame  Vicaud's  environment,  now  that 
it  was  empty  of  her.  It  was  one  of  work, 
poverty,  and  refinement.  Books  lined  one 
side  of  the  walls ;  the  furniture  was  of 
the  scantiest,  simplest  description ;  a  row 
of  old  prints — after  Sir  Joshua  and  Gains- 
borough, some  of  them  very  good  —  were 
hung  straightly  above  the  simple  writing- 
table  ;  on  this  table  stood  a  small  pot  of 
pink  flowers,  and  on  a  large  table  near  the 
center  of  the  room  were  books,  reviews, 
and  a  work-box ;  the  harp  and  the  grand 
piano  dominated  the  room.  The  high 
windows  did  not  overlook  the  street,  but 
the  branches,  flecked  still  with  gold  and 

47 


THE   RESCUE 

russet  autumn  leaves,  of  an  old  garden. 
Turning  from  this  outlook,  Damier  found 
his  attention  fixed  by  a  large  photograph 
that  occupied  a  prominent  place  in  a  black 
frame  upon  a  sedate  cabinet  near  the  win- 
dow. It  was  the  photograph  of  a  man  — 
of  Monsieur  Vicaud,  Damier  knew  at  once. 
He  gazed  long  at  the  face,  still  young, 
yet  showing  already  touches  of  decay  and 
degradation  in  the  poetry  and  beauty  of 
its  youth.  Without  these  touches  —  of 
presage  more  than  actuality  —  it  might 
have  been  the  face  of  a  Paolo,  with  tossed- 
back  hair  and  superb,  unfettered  throat. 
Monsieur  Vicaud  had  evidently  been  one 
of  the  few  men  whom  a  Byronic  disarray 
becomes.  Damier  saw  in  the  face  the  en- 
chantment that  had  deluded  Clara  Chan- 
frey,  and  hints  of  the  horror  that  had 
wrecked  all  enchantment.  The  longer 
one  looked  at  the  ardent,  dreamy  eyes, 
the  perfect  lips, —  helpless,  as  it  were,  be- 
fore one,  and  unable  in  charm  of  change 
to  divert  one's  attention  from  their  essen- 
tial meaning, —  the  more  one  felt  cruel 
selfishness,  hard  indifference,  and  lurking 


THE    RESCUE 

evil.  Instinctively  he  turned  and  walked 
away  from  Monsieur  Vicaud  as  he  heard 
footsteps  outside. 

When  the  mother  and  daughter  came 
in  together,  he  could  infer,  even  more 
clearly  than  from  the  bareness  of  the 
salon,  from  Madame  Vicaud's  shabby  furs 
and  unfashionable  wrap,  that  life,  to  be 
kept  up  at  all  with  niceness  and  finish, 
must  be  something  of  a  struggle  for  them  ; 
yet,  with  her  small  black  bonnet,  which 
she  was  tying  with  black  gauze  ribbons 
beneath  her  chin,  her  neat  gloves,  the 
poise  of  her  shoulders,  and  her  swift,  light 
step,  she  was  still  unmistakably  une  ele- 
gante. It  was  natural,  he  supposed, — 
though  feeling  some  resentment  at  such 
naturalness, —  that  the  struggle  should  be 
the  mother's  mainly ;  the  law  of  maternal 
self-sacrifice  perhaps  demanded  it.  Claire 
was  charmingly  dressed,  simply,  and  with 
a  Parisienne's  unerring  sense  of  harmony 
and  fitness.  She  was  neither  shabby  nor 
unfashionable  ;  the  fashion,  too,  expressed 
her,  not  itself. 

After   all,    she    still,    though    she   was 

49 


THE   RESCUE 

no  longer  une  toute  jeune  fille, —  she  must 
be  twenty-seven, —  had  her  life  before  her, 
and  her  achievement  of  pretty  clothes 
could  hardly  be  imputed  as  blame  to  her. 
The  early  November  afternoon  in  the 
Bois  was  misty,  with  sunlight  in  the  mist; 
the  air  was  mild.  Madame  Vicaud's  dark 
eyes  looked  down  the  long  vistas,  seeing, 
perhaps,  other  figures  in  them,  other  pic- 
tures. Damier  and  Mademoiselle  Vicaud 
talked  of  Italy.  She  had  never  been  there, 
but  she  questioned  him  about  Florence  and 
Rome,  and  Madame  Vicaud  asked  him  if 
he  had  heard  much  of  the  old  church 
music ;  and  the  music  had  been  his  great- 
est enjoyment.  Madame  Vicaud  was  fond 
of  Palestrina,  she  said ;  but  she  said  little 
of  the  fondness,  and  only  listened  with  a 
half- detached,  half-assenting  smile  while 
Claire  and  the  young  man  went  on  from 
Gluck  to  Wagner.  Mademoiselle  Vicaud 
was  full  of  admiration  —  though  her  ad- 
mirations were  always  unemphatic — for 
the  latter;  but  Madame  Vicaud,  though 
retaining,  evidently,  no  lurking  survivals 

50 


THE   RESCUE 

of  taste  for  the  operatic  music  of  her  youth, 
would  own  only  to  a  tempered  liking  for 
the  great  opera-master.  She  mused  lightly 
over  Damier's  demand  for  her  preferences, 
and  inclined  to  think  that  opera  never 
meant  much  to  her ;  it  was  a  form  of  art 
that  offended  her  taste  almost  inevitably ; 
its  appeal  to  the  eye  could  so  rarely  justify 
itself,  and  the  music,  of  course,  was  re- 
stricted by  its  being  pinned  down  to  defi- 
nite descriptive  themes. 

Claire  hummed  out,  in  a  melancholy, 
emotional  contralto,  a  phrase  from  "Tris- 
tan." "I  can't  sing  him  —  none  of  our 
French  throats  can  ;  but  he  fills  me,  sweeps 
me  up ;  that  is  all  I  ask  of  music.  Mamma 
likes  music  to  lift  her;  I  like  it  to  carry 
me  away."  Among  the  deep,  almost  pur- 
ple reds  of  her  hair,  the  tawny  luster  of 
her  coiling  furs,  her  cheeks,  in  the  keen, 
fresh  air,  glowed  dimly.  "  No,  I  could 
not  sing  Wagner,"  she  sighed;  "but  I 
could  sing.  I  am  an  artiste  manquee  ;  the 
one,  perhaps,  for  being  my  father's  daugh- 
ter, the  other  for  being  my  mother's.  She 


THE   RESCUE 

would  rather  have  me  teach  —  try  to  force 
a  little  of  my  own  energy  and  feeling  into 
dough-like  souls  —  than  have  me  sing  in 
public."  Mademoiselle  Vicaud's  smile  had 
no  rancor  as  she  made  these  statements, 
and  her  mother's  distant  gaze  showed  no 
change,  nor  did  she  speak. 

"  It  is  a  hard  and  a  rather  tawdry  life, 
that  of  an  opera-singer,"  said  Damier ;  "and, 
I  fancy,  almost  an  impossible  one  in  Paris." 

"  Ah,  but  I  am  tawdry,"  Claire  observed. 
If  antagonism  there  had  ever  been  on  this 
subject,  it  had  evidently  long  since  left  be- 
hind it  the  stage  of  discussion.  Claire 
made  no  appeal  or  protest — merely  stated 
facts. 

"  You  see,"  she  went  on,  very  much  as 
if  she  and  Damier  were  alone  together, 
"if  it  were  not  for  that  artist  nature, 
Mamma  would  not,  perhaps,  mind  so 
much.  It  is  because  I  am  not  —  what 
shall  we  call  it?  —  respectable?  heinf — 
well,  that  will  serve  —  that  she  dreads 
such  tests  for  me." 

Damier  now  saw  that,  though  Madame 
Vicaud's  silence  kept  all  its  calm,  she  very 

52 


THE   RESCUE 

slightly  flushed.  He  felt  in  her  a  some- 
thing, proud  and  shrinking,  that  steeled 
itself  to  hear  the  jarring  note  of  her  daugh- 
ter's jest ;  and  was  it  a  jest  ?  Again  the 
contrast  in  the  two  faces  struck  him,  this 
time  with  something  of  fundamental  alien- 
ation in  the  contrast.  It  occupied  his 
mind  after  Madame  Vicaud,  very  unem- 
phatically,  not  at  all  as  if  she  felt  that  it 
needed  turning,  took  the  lead  of  the  con- 
versation, and  while  Claire,  leaning  back 
in  her  corner,  listened  with,  when  she  was 
particularly  addressed,  her  indolent  "  Ah  !  " 
It  was,  indeed,  like  going  from  one  world 
to  another  to  look  from  her  mother's  face 
to  hers.  Already  he  felt  for  her  a  min- 
gling of  irritation  and  pity  that  was  to  grow 
as  he  knew  her  better. 

How  strangely  she  was  tainted  with 
something  really  almost  canaille;  the  soft 
depth  of  her  voice  reeked  with  it.  And 
how  strangely  blind  must  the  affection  of 
the  mother  be  that  could  bridge  the  chasm 
that  separated  her  from  her  daughter,  un- 
conscious—  her  evident  devotion  to  her 
proved  that  —  of  its  very  existence. 

53 


VI 


^ADAME  and  Mademoiselle  Vi- 
caud  were  at  home  on  Tuesdays, 
and  Damier  felt  that  he  would 
always  receive  a  courteously  cordial  wel- 
come on  these  formal  occasions ;  but  he 
felt,  too,  for  some  weeks,  that  the  courtesy, 
the  pleasant  graciousness  of  his  reception, 
did  not  grow  in  warmth.  He  was  accepted, 
but  no  more.  Madame  Vicaud  treated  him 
as  she  might  have  treated  him  had  he 
been  but  one  habitue  of  a  crowded  salon. 
Her  salon  was  anything  but  crowded ;  he 
soon  had  numbered  its  habitues.  There 
was  a  monotony  about  these  Tuesday 
reunions;  they  were  rather  thin  and  color- 
less ;  thin  only  in  quantity,  not  in  quality, 
for  that  was  excellent  —  reminded  him  of 
Madame  Vicaud's  black  silk  dresses  with 

54 


THE    RESCUE 

their  white  lawn  cuffs  and  collars,  a  quality 
worn  but  irreproachable.  Damier  came 
to  find  a  flavor,  an  unusualness,  in  the  cool 
cheerfulness  of  the  Tuesday  teas. 

The  salon  in  the  Rue  B on  these 

occasions  had  some  vases  of  flowers,  and 
the  tea,  brought  in  by  the  monastic  Ange- 
lique,  boasted  bread  and  butter  and  ma- 
deleines  as  well  as  the  daily  petits  beurres 
that  Damier  had  been  offered  on  a  more 
informal  visit. 

To  the  teas  came  old  Madame  Depres- 
sier,  who  was  of  an  impoverished  Hugue- 
not family,  and  who  spent  her  time  in 
works  of  charity,  a  serene  woman  with  a 
large  white  face — a  woman,  Damier  found 
on  talking  to  her,  of  character  and  learn- 
ing. She  and  Madame  Vicaud  talked 
of  books,  lectures,  and  poor  people,  and 
smiled  much  together.  Madame  Crecy 
came  also,  dignified,  middle-aged,  inter- 
ested in  le  mouvement  feministe,  a  writer 
of  essays,  dark,  decisive,  a  charm  in  her 
bright  ugliness.  There  was  a  dim,  de- 
vout, and  gentle  old  Comtesse  de  Com- 

55 


THE   RESCUE 

prattles.  She  had  known  Madame  Vicaud 
for  years,  from  before  her  marriage,  and 
her  piety  had  lifted  her  above  the  reali- 
zation of  the  secular  troubles  of  her  friend, 
and  had,  indeed,  kept  their  relation  a 
softly  superficial  one.  With  the  comtesse 
came  sometimes  a  tall,  thin  priest,  her 
cousin,  also  dim,  devout,  and  gentle  in 
these  social  relations  with  heretics. 

There  was  a  young  Polish  art-student, 
a  girl  with  a  thin,  ardent  face,  and  an 
attire  manlike  from  its  deficiency  of  adorn- 
ment rather  than  from  any  pose.  She 
wore  very  short  cloth  skirts, —  shortened 
by  several  years  of  wear  and  mending, 
our  acutely  sympathetic  young  man 
guessed, —  a  knotted  handkerchief  around 
her  throat,  and  a  soft  felt  hat.  To  this 
young  woman,  who,  Damier  heard,  had 
great  talent  and  was  miserably  poor,  Ma- 
dame Vicaud  showed  a  peculiar  tender- 
ness. Sophie  Labrinska  had  a  look  at 
once  weary  and  keen.  She  seldom  spoke, 
but  her  face  lighted  up  with  a  smile  for 
her  hostess,  and  on  Tuesdays  she  always 

56 


THE   RESCUE 

played  to  them  —  and  played  with  an  un- 
girl-like  mastery  and  beauty  of  interpre- 
tation —  a  ballade,  nocturne,  or  mazurka 
of  Chopin. 

Lady  Vibert  and  her  daughter  came 
too.  They  lived  in  a  tiny  flat  near  the 
Bois,  finding  poverty  in  Paris  more  genial 
and  resourceful  than  in  England.  Miss 
Vibert,  a  fresh-colored  young  woman  with 
prominent  teeth,  studied  art  also,  and  for 
years  had  gone  daily  to  a  studio  from 
which,  each  week,  she  brought  back  to 
the  tiny  flat  a  life-size  torso,  very  neatly 
painted.  She  and  her  mother  were  cheer- 
ful, eager  people,  taking  their  Paris,  their 
abonnement  at  the  Theatre  Fran^ais, — a 
rite  they  religiously  fulfilled, —  their  bi- 
weekly lecture  at  the  Ecole  de  France, 
with  a  pleasant  seriousness.  Madame 
Vicaud  lifted  her  eyebrows  and  smiled  a 
little,  though  very  kindly,  over  Miss  Vi- 
bert's  artistic  progress ;  but  she  was  fond 
of  her. 

As  for  Claire,  she  showed  little  fond- 
ness, with  one  exception,  for  any  of  her 

57 


THE    RESCUE 

mother's  guests.  Miss  Vibert  talked  to 
her  in  clear,  high  tones,  but  Claire  spoke 
little  to  her,  and  only  answered  with  her 
most  slumberous  smiles.  For  Sophie  she 
had  neither  smiles  nor  words.  She  ig- 
nored her  —  but  not  with  an  effect  of  in- 
tentional ignoring;  it  was  merely  that  the 
little  Polish  girl  made  no  advances,  and 
unless  she  were  advanced  to,  Claire,  in 
her  mother's  salon,  maintained  an  air  of 
indolent  detachment  —  except  for  one 
member  of  it,  the  only  one  who  could  be 
said  to  recall,  definitely,  what  there  was 
of  bohemia  in  Madame  Vicaud's  past. 
Monsieur  Claude  Daunay  did  no  more 
than  recall  it,  for  his  bohemianism  was  of 
a  most  tempered  quality,  consisting  in  a 
kindly  indifference  to  smallnesses,  a  half- 
humorous  choice  of  the  unconventional 
rather  than  an  ignorant  imprisonment  in 
it.  He  was  a  man  of  about  fifty,  and  his 
massive  gray  head,  Jovian  hair  and  beard, 
his  kindly,  wearied  eyes  and  stooping  yet 
stalwart  figure,  made  him  a  distinguished 
apparition  at  Madame  Vicaud's  teas.  She 

58 


THE   RESCUE 

placed  him,  sketched  him  for  Damier  in  a 
few  words,  the  most  open  that  her  reserve 
had  yet  allowed  her,  and  it  was  then  only 
after  a  good  many  Tuesdays :  "  He  knew 
my  husband,  and  was  very  kind  to  him, 
and  to  me,  when  we  were  in  need  of  kind- 
ness. He  has  no  genius, — he,  too,  is  a 
painter,  you  know, —  but  a  vast  apprecia- 
tion, and  a  vast  generosity  in  the  expres- 
sion of  it,  and  much  distinction  of  mind 
and  talent." 

Monsieur  Daunay  was  married,  but  his 
marriage  was  an  unfortunate  one.  Ma- 
dame Daunay  had  been  the  reverse  of  a 
model  wife ;  she  lived,  an  invalid,  a  life  of 
retirement  in  the  country,  and  was  sup- 
posed to  make  much  bitterness  in  the  ex- 
istence of  her  husband,  who  had  his  home 
with  a  vieille  fille  cousin  in  Paris.  Damier 
liked  the  scholarly  artist,  his  mild  smile 
and  air  of  weary  unexpectancy. 

It  was  with  Monsieur  Daunay  that  Claire 
was  her  most  vivid  self,  with  him  and  with 
their  new  "  young  "  friend  —  though,  when 
Monsieur  Daunay  was  present,  Damier's 

59 


THE   RESCUE 

relegation  to  the  background  bespoke  an 
excellent  loyalty  to  older  ties.  There  was 
something  very  nearly  filial  in  her  graceful 
and  affectionate  solicitude  for  Monsieur 
Daunay.  She  would  sweep,  in  trailing 
gowns,  always  a  little  over- perfumed, —  it 
was  the  point  where  her  taste  seemed  to 
fail  her, —  and  always  late,  into  the  salon, 
and,  if  Monsieur  Daunay  were  there,  go 
at  once  to  him  after  a  formal  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  other  presences  in  the  room. 
She  did  not  talk  much  with  him, —  she 
talked  more  to  Damier, —  but  while  he 
talked  to  her  she  smiled  at  him,  an  encour- 
aging, responsive  smile. 

Monsieur  Daunay  spoke  to  Damier  of 
Madame  Vicaud  as  une  dme  exquise,  and 
of  Claire  as  une  charmante  enfant,  a 
term  emphasizing  his  almost  paternal  at- 
titude, an  emphasis  made  more  noticeable 
by  his  more  formal  relations  with  the 
mother.  Damier  saw  that  he  was  very 
fond  of  Claire,  but  that  between  him  and 
Madame  Vicaud  there  were  no  bonds 
60 


THE   RESCUE 

closer  than  a  courteous  understanding 
and  regard.  On  Tuesday,  after  tea  and 
talk,  music  would  be  brought  out,  candles 
lighted  at  the  piano,  Claire  would  sing 
while  Monsieur  Daunay  accompanied  her 
on  the  piano  or  her  mother  on  the  harp, 
Sophie  would  play  her  Polish  music,  and 
Monsieur  Daunay  and  Madame  Vicaud 
give  a  solo  each  or  a  duet.  There  was 
not  a  trace  of  the  amateur  in  these  per- 
formances; the  pleasure  was  great,  and, 
for  Damier,  the  charm  too  deep  for  anal- 
ysis, in  this  listening  with  her,  or  to  her, 
in  the  quiet  room,  among  these  quiet,  sub- 
dued, rather  sad  people. 

He  was  still,  in  a  sense,  outside  the 
barrier,  but  they  all  were,  he  fancied,  in 
the  sense  he  meant.  These  Tuesdays 
were  the  nearest,  really,  that  any  of  them 
ever  came  to  her.  Yet  they  were  more 
definitely  accepted  as  friends :  he  was  still 
the  onlooker. 

It  was  only  humorously  that  he  resented 
his  slow  advance  to  a  more  individual 
61 


THE   RESCUE 

standing.  He  could  hardly  himself  mea- 
sure it;  and  yet  he  felt  that  he  was  being 
observed,  weighed,  thought  over,  and,  al- 
most imperceptibly,  that  her  smile  for  him 
gained  in  meaning. 


62 


VII 

jT  was  through  a  book  they  spoke 
of,  a  book  which  he  said  he  would 
bring  to  her,  that  they  came  at 
last  face  to  face,  and,  for  the  first  time 
really,  alone  together.  He  found  her  in 
the  firelit  room ;  her  last  pupil  had  gone, 
and  she  was  sitting  before  her  harp,  her 
hands  in  her  lap,  her  eyes  looking  vaguely 
in  front  of  her.  There  had  been  a  fall  of 
snow,  and  the  chill  February  afternoon 
outside  was  desolate  in  its  white  and  gray 
and  black.  Within  there  was  the  serenity, 
the  flicker  of  firelight,  Madame  Vicaud, 
and  her  silent  harp. 

She  turned  her  head  with  her  smile  of 
welcome,  and,  as  he  drew  a  chair  near 
hers,  lightly  touched  a  harp-string.  The 
throb  of  the  vibrant  note  echoed  in  the 

63 


THE   RESCUE 

young  man's  heart.  For  the  first  time, 
after  a  winter  of  patient  waiting,  he  was 
alone  with  his  mystery,  alone  with  the 
woman  he  adored ;  for  that  he  adored  this 
cold,  sweet,  faded  woman,  with  her  fra- 
grant life  blossoming  on  its  black  back- 
ground, was  as  much  a  fact  of  his  exis- 
tence as  that  he  had  seen  her  photograph 
on  that  distant  sunny  day. 

"  My  work  is  over,"  she  said.  "  I  am 
feeling  indolent.  Ah,  you  have  brought 
the  book ;  thank  you.  Will  you  read  it 
now  to  me  —  a  little  ?  "  She  leaned  back, 
smiling  still ;  her  eyes,  he  felt,  studying  him 
more  openly,  yet  more  kindly,  than  ever 
before.  "Will  you  ring  for  the  candles 
then,  or  would  you  rather  sit  on  for  a 
little  while  in  this  blindman's  holiday  ?  " 

"  I  would  rather  sit  on,  and  have  you 
play  to  me,  if  you  are  not  too  tired." 

"I  am  tired  of  teaching  —  of  listening, 
not  of  playing."  She  at  once  adjusted 
her  foot,  stretched  her  arms,  bending  to 
the  instrument,  and  played  an  old  and 
plaintive  melody. 

64 


THE   RESCUE 

"  Exquisite,"  said  Damier,  when  it 
ended.  "  It  is  so  staid  in  form,  yet  so 
melancholy  in  feeling." 

"  Yes ;  like  the  melancholy  of  a  sad 
heart,  whispering  its  sorrow  to  itself  under 
the  lace  and  brocade  of  a  long-dead 
epoch."  She  went  on  to  a  joyous  little 
pastoral,  and  said,  smiling  at  him,  that 
that  was  like  a  bank  of  primroses;  and, 
after  the  next,  "And  that  all  innocent 
solemnity  and  sweetness,  like  a  nun's 
prayer."  And  when  she  had  finished 
they  sat  in  silence  for  some  time. 

"Have  you  always  played?"  he  asked 
her  at  last,  seeing  her  suddenly  as  a 
young  girl  in  a  white  dress,  with  a  green 
ribbon  around  her  waist,  an  emerald  locket 
at  her  throat,  sitting  at  her  harp. 

"  Always ;  I  learned  when  I  was  a  child." 
The  unspoken  sadness  of  the  past  seemed 
to  steal  about  them ;  he  seemed  to  hear 
the  "sad  heart  whispering  to  itself"  as 
they  sat  there  in  the  firelight. 

"I  have  often  thought,"  Madame  Vi- 
caud  said,  turning  suddenly  toward  him 
65 


THE   RESCUE 

and  smiling  with  a  touch  of  constraint, 
"that  it  was  very  nice  of  you  to  seek  us 
out  like  this.  I  have  often  wanted  to 
speak  to  you  about  it.  For  it  was  you 
rather  than  Mrs.  Mostyn  who  sought, 
was  it  not  ?  What  made  you  think  of  it  ?  " 
she  asked,  her  smile  growing  in  sweetness 
as  his  eyes  dwelt  on  hers. 

"  It  was  a  very  romantic  reason,"  Da- 
mier  said;  "or,  no,  I  won't  belittle  my 
reason  by  that  trivial  term ;  it  was  a  very 
serious  reason,  rather,  a  very  real  one. 
I  saw  your  photograph  in  an  album  be- 
longing to  Mrs.  Mostyn,  and  then  I 
wanted  to  see  you." 

She  looked  at  him  in  silence. 

"  How  very  strange !  "  she  presently 
said.  "Wanted  enough  for  that?" 

"  To  seek  you  ?  Quite  enough ;  more." 
He  smiled.  "  Yes,  it  was  strange  —  is 
strange.  I  did  not  know  whether  you 
were  alive  or  dead,  nor  did  Mrs.  Mostyn." 

"  And  you  set  out  in  quest  of  me  ?  " 

"  Yes,  after  a  time.  At  first  Mrs.  Mos- 
tyn could  hear  nothing  of  you.  I  met 
66 


THE   RESCUE 

another  old  acquaintance  of  yours  —  Sir 
Henry  Quarle.  He  talked  to  me  about 
you,  too,  and  immediately  afterward  I 
got  your  address  from  Mrs.  Mostyn  and 
her  letter  to  you.  Then  I  set  out  at 
once." 

Madame  Vicaud  looked  at  him  with  a 
grave,  speculating  look  for  some  silent 
moments,  before  saying,  turning  her  eyes 
away  and  once  more  showing  constraint 
in  her  voice : 

"  You  heard  that  I  had  been  unfortunate 
—  unhappy?  You  were  sorry  for  that?" 

"  Yes ;  but  had  you  been  very  fortu- 
nate, very  happy,  I  should  still  have 
looked  for  you." 

"  But  why  ?  Did  you  like  my  face  so 
much  ? " 

"  So  much.  I  felt  that  I  should  have 
known  you  long  ago,  and  that,  having 
missed  you  for  so  long  through  the  stupid 
accident  of  the  years,  I  must  know  you 
always  in  the  future.  I  should  have  felt 
it  had  you  been  dead."  His  charming 
eyes  dwelling  on  her  with  a  perfect  candor 
67 


THE   RESCUE 

and  simplicity,  for  it  was  easy  at  last  to 
speak  these  familiar  thoughts  to  her,  he 
added :  "I  needed  you ;  I  had  always 
needed  you.  And  so,  it  seemed  to  me, 
you  needed  me ;  your  eyes  in  the  photo- 
graph called  to  me." 

At  this  she  looked  swiftly  at  him  with 
an  astonishment  that  slowly  softened  to 
a  smile.  "  You  are  a  strange,  a  good 
friend,"  she  said. 

"  You  accept  me  as  such  ? " 

"Ah,  yes,"  she  replied,  "I  accept  you 
as  such  —  gratefully.  I  don't  call  you. 
Those  days  are  over." 

She  rose,  pushing  the  harp  aside,  and 
walked  slowly  down  the  room,  pausing  at 
the  window  and  looking  out.  He  divined 
that  she  was  much  touched,  even  that 
there  were  tears  in  her  eyes.  He  feared 
to  show  her  the  depths  of  his  feeling  for 
her,  his  longing  to  enter  her  life,  help  her, 
if  it  might  be,  in  it;  but,  rising  too,  he 
said  in  a  slightly  trembling  voice  :  "  You 
don't  need  my  friendship,  but  I  need 
yours.  Let  that  be  my  claim." 
68 


THE   RESCUE 

"  Your  claim  to  what  ?  "  she  asked,  her 
face  still  turned  from  him. 

"To  the  hope  that  I  may  grow  into 
your  confidence  —  the  hope  that  you  will 
lean  on  me,  trust  me  completely,  and  that, 
with  time,  I  may,  perhaps,  mean  some- 
thing to  you  of  what  you  mean  to  me." 

Her  face  now,  as  she  looked  at  him, 
showed  a  curious,  a  vivid  look  of  wonder, 
humor,  tenderness,  and  sadness. 

"What  am  I,  that  I  should  mean  so 
much  to  you  ?  You  don't  know  me." 

"  Is  that  your  kind  way  of  intimating 
that  I  can  mean  nothing  to  you  —  that 
you  don't  know  me  ?  "  he  smiled. 

"  Ah,  don't  think  that  I  am  so  hard  and 
stupid !  "  she  said  quickly.  "  Don't  think 
that  I  am  fencing  with  you,  trying  to  ward 
off  a  friendship  I  can't  appreciate.  Don't 
think  that  I  have  no  need  of  a  friend.  I 
have ;  I  have  —  only  I  had  forgotten  to 
feel  it.  I  do  not  say  that  I  have  no  friends ; 
you  know  that  I  have,  and  good  ones  — 
only  you  do  not  wish  to  rank  with  them. 
Is  n't  it  so  ?  "  She  smiled  swiftly,  from 

69 


THE    RESCUE 

her  gravity,  at  him.  "There  is  good 
Madame  Depressier,  and  the  comtesse, 
and  little  Sophie, —  who  needs  me,  poor 
child,  in  her  struggle  and  loneliness, — 
and  the  others,  true  and  good  all ;  but 
none  near.  You  would  be  near, —  would 
you  not  ?  —  and  have  me  share  pain  with 
you  —  lean  on  you,  you  say."  His  fine 
young  face,  stern  with  eagerness,  fol- 
lowed her  words  in  silent  assent.  "  But 
it  would  be  difficult  for  me  to  have  such  a 
friend.  I  have  never  had  such  a  friend. 
It  is  difficult,  painful  to  me  to  show  myself, 
be  myself.  I  am  a  hard,  I  fear  a  spoiled, 
stunted  nature.  You  heard  —  of  course 
you  must  have  heard ;  it  is  the  one  thing 
that  anybody  must  hear  who  hears  at 
all  of  me  —  that  my  marriage  was  very 
unhappy.  It  warped  me;  it  froze  me. 
There  was  no  one  to  help  me  when  I 
needed  help,  or  to  hear  me,  even  had  I 
not  been  too  proud  to  call,  and  I  lost  the 
power  of  appeal  or  self-expression.  If 
I  had  been  gentler,  less  bitter  in  my  de- 
spair, less  rebellious,  I  might  have  kept 
70 


THE   RESCUE 

more  in  touch  with  life,  been  more  nat- 
ural, more  responsive.  As  it  is,  I  can 
still  feel  —  deeply,  deeply ;  but  it  is  hard 
for  me  to  respond.  I  am  old  enough  to 
be  your  mother.  No?  Well,  almost." 
She  smiled  slightly  at  his  exactitude.  "  I 
am  very  different  from  the  girl  in  the 
photograph  whose  eyes  called  to  you  — 
prophetic  eyes  they  must  have  been  !  You 
must  not  expect  fine  things  of  me ;  you 
must  not  idealize  me."  She  put  her  hand 
gently,  maternally  on  his  shoulder.  "Never 
idealize  me.  That  is  a  dangerous  —  a 
terrible  thing  to  do." 

"  Can  you  look  at  me,"  he  asked,  put- 
ting his  hand  on  hers —  "can  you  look  at 
me  and  think  that  I  could  idealize  you  ?  — 
see  you  as  anything  else  than  you  are? 
Don't  you  feel  that,  indeed,  I  can  see  you 
much  more  clearly  than  you  see  yourself 
—  the  girl  in  the  photograph,  and  the 
woman  old  enough,  almost  old  enough, 
to  be  my  mother?  You  are  shut  into 
your  present.  I  see  you  in  it — and  in  all 
your  past." 


THE    RESCUE 

She  stood  looking  gravely  into  his  eyes 
as  he  looked  into  hers.  In  hers  there  was 
—  not  seen  by  him  and  hardly  felt  by 
herself — a  swiftly  passing,  an  immense 
regret,  an  immense  sadness.  It  was  like 
the  sweeping  shadow  of  a  flying  wing,  and 
left  only  the  limpidity  of  sweetest,  most 
candid  acquiescence.  In  his  eyes,  too, 
there  was  regret  —  passionate  regret;  and 
he  felt  it,  and  felt  that  she  could  not  un- 
derstand or  read  it,  nor  the  vague,  strong 
hope  that  so  strangely  informed  it. 

"  So  I  have  a  friend,  a  new  yet  an 
old  friend,"  said  Madame  Vicaud.  "  You 
perplex  me,  but  I  believe  in  all  you  say. 
You  give  me  great  happiness." 

He  lifted  the  hand  under  his  and  bent 
his  lips  to  it.  She  looked  down  at  his 
bowed  head  with  a  smile  that  was  a  bene- 
diction. 

On  that  first  day  of  their  friendship,  as 
they  sat  together,  she  again  before  her 
harp,  it  was,  oddly,  he  who  leaned  and  con- 
fided. Almost  boyishly,  under  her  com- 
prehending eyes,  he  unfolded  for  her  his 
72 


THE   RESCUE 

life,  its  deepest  efforts  and  its  deepest  dis- 
appointments. Madame  Vicaud,  while  he 
talked  and  she  questioned,  drew  her  fin- 
gers softly,  from  time  to  time,  across  her 
harp-strings.  He  never  forgot  the  hour, 
nor  the  sense  of  communion  that  the  sil- 
very ripple  of  the  harp-strings  made  para- 
disiacal. 

"  And  will  you  not  marry  ?  Have  you 
not  thought  of  marrying  ?  "  she  asked. 

He  considered  her  with  what  he  knew 
to  be  a  whimsical  smile  at  her  uncon- 
sciousness. 

"  I  have  been  too  great  a  coward  ever 
to  get  further  than  thinking  of  it.  My 
love-affairs  have  rarely  passed  the  specu- 
lative stage.  My  ideals  of  marriage  are 
of  a  most  exacting  nature." 

"  Ah,  that  is  well,"  she  said.  "  Never 
lower  them  to  fit  some  reality  that,  for  the 
moment,  appeals.  I  hope,"  she  added, 
"that  you  will  some  day  find  the  woman 
who  realizes  them." 

No,  the  silly  accident  of  the  years  too 
much  blinded  her,  Damier  felt,  for  her  to 

73 


THE   RESCUE 

see,  yet,  that  she  was  the  woman.  He  him- 
self was  too  much  dazzled  to  see  beyond 
the  fact  itself.  Any  question  of  love  or 
marriage  seemed  irrelevant,  did  not  enter 
at  all  into  this  wonderful  and  happy  place 
where  her  harp  rippled,  her  eyes  smiled, 
where  she  understood  that  he  had  found 
her. 


74 


VIII 

•FTER  this  there  was  no  more 
the  feeling  of  a  barrier.  It  was 
gone;  and  with  perfect  gracious- 
ness  and  trust  she  admitted  him  to  the 
personal  standing  and  nearness  he  had 
asked  for.  She  was  all  confidence  now, 
although  she  made  no  confidences.  He 
felt  that  her  trust  in  him  hid  nothing  from 
him,  and  yet  that  her  pride  made  her  past 
sorrows  so  poignantly  intimate  that  they 
must  be  understood  between  her  friend 
and  herself,  not  spoken  of. 

The  nearer  intimacy  with  the  mother 
did  not  bring  Damier  into  nearer  intimacy 
with  the  daughter,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  he  was  already  so  intimate.  From 
the  first  Damier  had  felt  that  he  under- 
stood Claire  Vicaud.  He  could  not  yet 

75 


THE   RESCUE 

clearly  define  what  he  understood,  but 
she  could  have  no  revelations  for  him. 
Her  father  explained  her,  and  her  mother 
reclaimed  her.  That  was  her  history,  and 
he  imagined  that  neither  she  nor  her 
mother  was  aware  of  the  history,  but 
the  mother  less  than  she.  Indeed,  he 
fancied,  at  times,  that  he  saw  her  far  more 
clearly  than  did  the  mother  —  hoped  that 
the  mother  had  not  his  direct  vision. 

He  was  rather  fond  of  Claire,  with  a 
fondness  tolerant,  humorous,  and  pitying. 
What  he  saw  in  her  were  thwarted  ener- 
gies, well  thwarted,  yet  pathetic  in  their 
enforced  composure ;  he  saw  voiceless 
rebellion,  and  the  dumb  discomfort  of  a 
creature  reared  in  an  environment  not  its 
own.  This  simile  might  have  cast  a  re- 
proach upon  the  mother  had  it  conjured 
up  the  vision  of  an  unkindly  caged  pan- 
theress ;  but  the  simile  so  seen  was  too 
poetical  for  Claire.  It  was  not  the  wild, 
fine,  free  thing  of  nature  that  circumstance 
had  caged,  but  the  product  of  over-civilized 
senses  —  senses  only,  and  corrupt  senses. 


THE   RESCUE 

There  was  the  point  that  made  her  piteous 
and  repellent. 

Claire's  claim  on  life  was  not  a  high 
one.  Hers  was  not  even  an  esthetic  fas- 
tidiousness of  sense  nor  a  romantic  color- 
ing of  emotion ;  there  was  nothing  deli- 
cate or  warm  or  eager  about  her.  Her 
wishes  were  not  yearnings ;  they  were 
steadfast  inclinations  toward  all  the  evi- 
dent, the  palpable,  perhaps  the  baser 
pleasures  of  life,  pleasures  that  would  most 
certainly  have  been  hers  had  not  fate  —  in 
the  shape  of  a  mother  to  whom  these  plea- 
sures were  non-existent  rather  than  despic- 
able—  lifted  her  above  the  possible  grasp 
at  them:  jewels,  clothes,  magnificent  estab- 
lishments, riotous  living.  She  was  cold, 
but  she  would  welcome  passively  the 
warmth  of  admiration  about  her.  She 
had  not  her  father's  genius  to  transmute 
the  tawdry  cravings  of  her  inheritance  from 
him.  She  had  his  quick,  clear  intelligence, 
and  it  seemed  only  to  make  harder,  more 
decisive,  her  centering  in  self. 

Damier  could  see  her  as  the  painted 

77 


THE   RESCUE 

prima  donna  (never  as  the  sincere  and 
serious  artist),  bowing  her  languorous 
triumph  before  the  curtain ;  could  see  her 
laughing  in  ugly  mirth  at  Gallic  jests  among 
a  crowd  of  clever  rapins ;  could  horribly 
image  her  —  most  horribly  when  one  re- 
membered who  was  her  mother  —  rolling 
in  a  lightly  swung  carriage  down  the 
Avenue  des  Acacias,  a  modern  Cleopatra 
in  her  barge,  alluring  in  indifference  under 
her  parasol,  and  dressed  with  the  con- 
summate and  conscious  art  that  does  not 
flower  in  the  sound  soil  of  respectability. 
These  were,  indeed,  horrid  thoughts,  and 
as  absurd  as  horrid  when  the  mother  stood 
beside  them.  Even  to  think  them  seemed 
to  put  a  dagger  into  a  heart  already  many 
times  stabbed.  Yet  separate  mother  and 
daughter, — it  was  ominously  easy  so  to 
separate  them, —  and  nothing  in  Claire  re- 
proached and  contradicted  such  images. 
Inevitably  they  arose,  and,  as  inevitably, 
the  companion  picture  of  the  mother,  like 
a  transfixed  Mater  Dolorosa. 

To  the  mother  he  felt  that  in  giving  in- 

78 


THE    RESCUE 

terest  and  attention  to  Claire  he  rendered 
a  service  more  grateful  to  her  than  any 
homage.  He  proposed  that  he  should 
take  Claire  for  walks  sometimes,  and  he 
felt  something  of  the  staidness  of  the  girl's 
upbringing  in  Madame  Vicaud's  acquies- 
cence, in  its  implied  trust  —  a  trust  that 
waived  a  custom  in  his  favor.  It  expressed 
the  mother's  attitude  against  all  that  was 
lax  or  undignified  in  life.  Claire  could  go 
with  him,  their  friend,  but,  Claire  told  him 
with  a  light  laugh,  she  seldom  went  out 
alone.  "  Only  sometimes  with  Monsieur 
Daunay — but  he  is  like  a  father,  almost; 
and  to  the  dressmaker's ;  and  almost  al- 
ways Mamma  is  with  me  —  we  are  such 
companions,  you  know."  Damier  could 
not  quite  determine  as  to  possible  irony 
in  her  placid  tones.  He  looked  upon 
these  walks  with  Claire  —  they  would 
cross  the  Seine,  looking  up  at  Carpeaux's 
jocund  group  on  the  Pavilion  de  Flore, 
and  pace  sedately  in  the  Tuileries  Gar- 
dens or  up  the  Champs-Elysees  —  as  e?x- 
pressions  of  his  identification  of  himself 

79 


THE   RESCUE 

with  Madame  Vicaud's  interests,  for  he 
always  felt  that  it  pleased  her  that  he 
should  ask  Claire  to  go ;  yet,  after  each 
one  of  them,  he  could  not  defend  himself 
from  the  strange  sensation  that  he  had 
been  in  an  atmosphere  disloyal  to  his 
friend.  The  atmosphere  was  so  different, 
yet  so  subtly  different,  when  Claire  was 
alone  with  him,  or  with  him  and  her  mo- 
ther. So  subtle  was  the  difference  that 
any  remonstrance  on  his  part  might  con- 
stitute a  stupid  rebuff  to  her  unconscious- 
ness ;  yet  so  different  were  her  tones,  her 
look,  her  laugh,  so  different  the  quality  of 
her  frankness,  \tegaillardise,  as  it  were,  and 
its  familiarity,  almost  insolent  in  its  assur- 
ance—  so  different  were  all  these  that  he 
could  hardly  believe  her  unconscious  of 
the  change.  He  did  understand  her ;  that 
was  the  trouble:  for  she  acted  as  if  he  did, 
and  as  if  all  pretenses  were  unnecessary 
between  them,  and  free  breathing  a  relief 
to  both  after  a  burdensome  atmosphere. 
Damier,  while  they  walked,  showed  a 
grave  kindliness,  listened  to  her,  assented 
80 


THE    RESCUE 

or  dissented  with  a  careful  accuracy  that 
amused  himself.  He  was  not  quite  sure 
why,  with  Claire,  he  seldom  felt  it  safe 
to  be  flexible  or  flippant;  some  dim  in- 
stinct of  self-protection  before  this  em- 
bryotic  soul  and  quick  intelligence  made 
him  guard  himself  against  all  misinter- 
pretations, made  him  scrupulous  in  defin- 
ing the  differences  between  them.  Claire 
referred  little  to  her  mother,  and  then,  at 
least  in  the  beginnings  of  their  intercourse, 
in  the  tones  of  commonplace  respect, 
with  something  of  the  effect,  he  more  and 
more  realized,  of  shuffling  aside  an  excel- 
lence that  they  both  took  for  granted  but 
hardly  cared  to  linger  over  —  she  cer- 
tainly did  not,  though  he  might  have  odd, 
pretty  tastes  for  the  past  and  done  with. 

What  to  him  was  poetry  —  for,  to  a 
certain  extent,  she  seemed  to  appreciate 
his  attitude  toward  her  mother  —  was  to 
her  the  mere  furniture  of  life.  Damier 
resented,  but  for  some  time  was  helpless; 
she  gave  him  no  occasion  for  declaration 
or  defense.  Once  or  twice,  when,  a  pro- 
6  Si 


THE    RESCUE 

pos  de  bottes,  as  far  as  actual  comment  was 
required,  he  seriously  spoke  of  his  deep 
admiration  for  her  mother,  Claire  listened 
with  a  cela-va-sans-dire  expression  vastly 
baffling.  Only  by  degrees,  and  only  after 
some  definite  sharpnesses  on  his  side,  did 
she  seem  to  realize  that,  in  including  him 
in  her  own  casual  attitude  toward  her 
mother,  she  not  only  misinterpreted  but 
irritated  and  antagonized  him.  After  that 
realization  she  never  so  offended  again. 
Indeed,  with  an  air  of  honoring  his  fantas- 
tic sensitiveness,  yet  with  gravity,  as  if  to 
show  him  that  she,  too,  could  appreciate 
moral  charm,  the  pathos  of  defeat  and 
finality,  she  often  alluded  to  her  mother's 
fine  and  gracious  qualities  ;  but,  in  spite  of 
this  concession,  Damier  was  still  aware 
of  the  indefinable  difference  that  made  the 
atmosphere  seem  disloyal. 

She  said  one  day :  "  You  have  really 
decided  to  live  in  Paris  —  for  ever  and 
ever  —  hein?  Is  it  we  you  are  studying? 
Do  you  find  us  interesting  ?  " 

"  Very,"  replied  Damier. 
82 


THE   RESCUE 

"  But  the  world  is  full  of  so  many  more 
interesting  people," said  Claire,  "than  two 
ladies,  one  almost  old  and  one  rapidly 
leaving  her  youth  behind  her,  who  live  the 
narrowest  of  lives  and  give  lessons  to 
make  butter  for  their  bread." 

"  I  have  not  met  many  more  interest- 
ing." 

"  Then  it  is  —  to  study  us  ?  "  Her 
sleepy  smile  was  upon  him. 

Damier  had  certainly  no  intention  of 
confiding  in  Claire  the  reasons  for  his  stay 
in  Paris,  feeling  suddenly,  indeed,  that  the 
young  woman  herself  formed  a  rather 
serious  problem  in  all  practical  considera- 
tions of  these  reasons ;  yet  the  attitude 
implied  in  her  question  demanded  a  nega- 
tive. "  No,  it  is  n't  because  I  am  studying 
you ;  it  is  because  I  am  fond  of  you,"  he 
said,  bringing  out  the  words  with  a  touch 
of  awkwardness,  feeling  their  simplicity 
to  be  almost  crude. 

Claire  was  reflectively  silent  for  some 
moments,  observing  his  face,  he  knew, 
though  he  was  not  looking  at  her. 

83 


THE   RESCUE 

"  Vous  etes  un  original"  she  said  at 
last,  with  quite  the  manner  of  her  race 
when  abandoning,  as  impenetrable  to  ra- 
tional probes,  some  specimen  of  British 
eccentricity. 

On  another  day  a  little  incident  occurred, 
slight,  yet  destined  to  impress  Damier  with 
a  deeper  sense  of  Claire's  unsoundness. 
They  were  walking  down  the  Champs- 
Elysees,  in  the  windy  brightness  of  a 
March  afternoon,  when,  in  the  distance, 
near  the  Rond  Point,  they  discerned  the 
easily  recognizable  figure  of  Monsieur 
Daunay.  Claire,  as  this  old  friend  ap- 
peared upon  the  field  of  vision,  put  her 
hand  in  Damier's  arm  and,  drawing  him 
toward  one  of  the  smaller  streets  that  slope 
down  to  the  spacious  avenue,  said,  smiling 
unemphatically  :  "Don't  let  us  meet  him." 

"Why  not?"  Damier  inquired,  sur- 
prised, and  conscious  in  his  surprise  of  a 
quick  hostility  to  Claire  and  to  her  smiling 
look  of  dexterous  evasion. 

"He  has  n't  seen  us  —  come,"  she  in- 
sisted, though  the  insistence  was  still  veiled 
in  humor. 

84 


THE   RESCUE 

"Why  should  he  not  see  us?  I  shall 
be  glad  to  see  him." 

Her  eyes  measured  Monsieur  Daunay's 
distance  before  she  said,  with  something 
of  impatience  at  his  slowness  of  compre- 
hension :  "  He  will  be  shocked  —  think  it 
improper  —  our  walking  out  alone  like 
this."  Damier  stared  at  her,  stolidly  re- 
sistant to  the  soft  pull  of  her  hand. 

"Improper?  Your  mother  consenting 
—  you  an  Englishwoman,  I  an  English- 
man?" 

"  He  is  a  Frenchman,  and  I  am  half 
French ;  you  seem  to  forget  that,  both 
you  and  Mamma,  at  times."  If  she  was 
irritated  with  him  she  successfully  con- 
trolled her  irritation,  and  Monsieur  Dau- 
nay  was  so  near  that  flight  before  his 
misinterpretation  was  impossible.  She 
evidently  resigned  herself  to  the  situation 
of  Damier's  making  —  let  him  feel,  with  a 
shrug  of  her  shoulders,  that  it  was  of  his 
making  indeed,  but,  by  a  half-indifferent, 
half- ironic  smile,  that  he  was  forgiven ; 
he  must  be  strong  enough  for  both  of 
them,  the  smile  said. 

85 


THE   RESCUE 

Monsieur  Daunay  approached,  doffing 
his  hat,  and  Damier  at  once  perceived  that 
there  was  certainly  in  his  eye  a  cogitation 
very  courteous,  but  altogether  out  of  keep- 
ing, he  thought,  with  the  importance  of 
its  cause.  He  himself  felt  absent-minded, 
his  thoughts  engaged  more  with  the  anal- 
ysis of  the  new  and  disagreeable  sensation 
Claire  had  given  him  than  with  the  sensa- 
tions she  might  have  given  Monsieur  Dau- 
nay. He  replied  somewhat  vaguely  to 
Monsieur  Daunay's  salutations,  and,  not 
so  vaguely,  heard  Claire  saying,  "  Mamma 
has  sent  us  out  for  a  walk." 

"Fine  weather  for  walking,"  Monsieur 
Daunay  replied,  looking  away  from  the 
young  woman  up  at  the  vivid  spring  sky 
and  round  at  the  expansive  day,  all  wind, 
sunlight,  and  sauntering  groups  of  people. 

"  You  often  walk  here  ? "  he  continued 
pleasantly. 

"  Not  so  often ;  I  am  too  hard  worked 
to  get  a  frequent  holiday:  but  Mr.  Damier 
takes  us  out  sometimes." 

"  Madame  Vicaud  is  at  home  ?  " 
86 


THE   RESCUE 

"  Yes ;  she  has  pupils,  or  she  would 
have  been  with  us." 

"She  is  well,  I  trust?" 

"Very  well.  We  shall  see  you  at  tea 
to-morrow  ? "  Claire  laid  a  gently  urgent 
hand  upon  his  arm.  "  I  have  been  prac- 
tising the  Gluck.  I  think  you  will  be 
pleased  with  it.  You  will  come  ? " 

"With  great  pleasure,  as  always,"  said 
the  Frenchman,  but  still  with  something 
of  unwonted  gravity  beneath  his  apparent 
ease. 

They  parted,  and  Claire  and  Damier 
walked  on. 

"  He  was  shocked,"  said  Claire,  mildly. 

Monsieur  Daunay  might  or  might  not 
be  shocked,  but  Damier  felt  that  he  him- 
self was,  more  so  than  he  could  quite  ac- 
count for.  He  fixed  upon  that  wholly 
unnecessary  half-untruth  of  hers;  he  could 
not  let  it  pass. 

"  We  have  often  come  here ;  your  mother 
has  only  once  come  with  us,"  he  said,  with 
the  effect  of  cold  shyness  that  his  dis- 
pleasure usually  took ;  it  always  required 

87 


THE   RESCUE 

an  effort  of  distinct  courage  on  Eustace 
Damier's  part  to  express  displeasure. 

"There  was  no  necessity  for  him  to 
know  that,"  she  returned,  adding,  with  a 
laugh :  "  Now  I  have  shocked  both  of  you 
—  he  in  his  convenances,  you  in  your 
English  veracity.  I  don't  mind  fibbing 
in  the  least,  I  must  tell  you." 

"  Don't  you  ?  "  His  displeasure  was  now 
determined  to  show  its  definite  coolness. 

"  Not  in  the  least,"  said  Claire,  with 
perfect  good  humor,  "in  myself  or  in 
others";  and  she  added,  with  a  little  laugh 
at  herself,  "unless  other  people's  fibs  in- 
terfere with  mine ;  but  I  think  that  I  mind 
their  fibs  interfering  less  than  their  truths." 

Damier  resigned  himself  to  feeling  that, 
after  all,  he  was  thoroughly  prepared  for 
any  such  developments  in  Claire ;  it  was 
the  tragedy  in  the  thought  of  the  other 
Clara  that  was  knocking  at  his  heart. 


88 


IX 


>HE  arrival  in  Paris,  where  she 
was  to  pass  some  months,  of  a 
friend  of  Damier's,  Lady  Surfex, 
a  charming,  capable  woman  whose  hus- 
band was  his  nearest  friend,  was  the  means 
of  casting  a  further  and  still  more  lurid 
light  upon  Claire's  character  and  Madame 
Vicaud's  past. 

Damier  wished  to  bring  Madame  Vi- 
caud  and  Lady  Surfex  together.  He  had 
plans,  and  was  vastly  amused  to  realize 
that  they  were  of  a  quite  paternal  char- 
acter. These  plans  did  not  go  beyond 
the  thought  that  a  widening  of  Claire's 
life  might  be  an  excellent  thing  for  her, 
and,  as  a  result,  a  happy  thing  for  her 
mother.  To  see  Claire  well,  safely,  hap- 
pily married,  would  not  this  be  the  lifting 
89 


THE    RESCUE 

of  a  problem  from  the  mother's  heart  ?  As 
yet  he  had  not  gone  further  and  told  him- 
self that  it  would  leave  the  mother's  heart 
freer  for  the  contemplation  of  other  prob- 
lems. Now  Claire's  chances  of  a  pros- 
perous marriage  would  certainly  be  multi- 
plied if  he  could  bring  around  her  and  her 
mother  a  few  such  friends  as  Lady  Surfex. 
He  spoke  to  her,  on  his  first  visit  to  her, 
of  the  Vicauds,  and  of  his  wish  that  they 
might  meet.  "  The  charming  Clara  Chan- 
frey ! "  Lady  Surfex  said.  (With  what  a 
chime  all  allusions  to  Clara  Chanfrey 
always  began,  to  end  with  such  funereal 
tolling  !)  "  Ah,  you  make  me  feel  how 
old  I  am  becoming,  for  how  often  in  my 
girlhood  I  heard  my  mother  speak  of  her  ! 
She  always  spoke  severely.  Mother  be- 
longed to  the  old  regime,  you  know  —  saw 
things  steadily,  and  saw  them  whole,  per- 
haps, but  rather  narrowly,  and  only  one 
thing  at  a  time.  She  could  n't  take  in,  as 
it  were,  the  extenuations  of  circumstance. 
And  she  was  a  great  friend  of  Lady  Chan- 
frey's.  Lady  Chanfrey  infected  all  her  allies 
90 


THE    RESCUE 

with  her  own  bitterness.  But  the  memory 
of  the  daughter's  charm  came  through  it. 
She  was  like  her  father,  not  like  her  mother. 
I  never  liked  the  little  I  remember  of  Lady 
Chanfrey.  But  I  have  heard  of  Madame 
Vicaud  since  I  used  to  hear  of  her  from 
mother,  and,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  more  and 
more  sadly." 

"  All  I  hear  of  her  is  sad,"  said  Damier. 
"  Every  echo  from  her  past  is  a  groan  ! " 

"Poor  woman!"  Lady  Surfex  mused. 
"  First  the  awful  husband,  and  then  the, 
to  say  the  least  of  it,  trying  daughter." 

Damier's  heart  stiffened.  "Trying?  In 
what  way  —  I  may  ask?" 

"  Of  course  you  may  —  you  know  them 
so  well ;  and,  as  I  see,  your  sympathy  is  all 
with  the  mother.  Well,  I  am  afraid  she 
is  altogether  trying,  but  the  instance  of 
which  I  was  thinking  deserves  a  severer 
adjective.  Some  friends  of  mine  in  Che- 
shire, nice,  quiet  people,  had  always  kept 
more  or  less  in  touch  with  Madame  Vi- 
caud during  her  stormy  life.  They  did 
not  meet,  but  they  sometimes  wrote. 


THE   RESCUE 

Mrs.  Barnett  and  she  had  been  friends  in 
girlhood.  Claire,  when  she  grew  up,  went 
to  stay  with  them.  Very  beautiful,  very 
clever,  singing  wonderfully,  yet,  from  the 
beginning,  she  struck  a  false  note.  And 
then  there  was  the  ugly  little  story :  a 
young  man,  Captain  Dauncey,  fell  madly 
in  love  with  her ;  they  were  engaged ; 
and,  within  hardly  a  month's  time,  she 
jilted  him  openly  and  brazenly  for  a 
better  match.  That  was  only  the  begin- 
ning. Sir  Everard  Comber  was  madly 
in  love,  too,  but  Mrs.  Barnett  told  me 
that  they  felt  that  he  knew  there  was  no 
good  metal  under  her  glamour;  the  glam- 
our was  so  great  that  he  hoodwinked  him- 
self. It  was  tragic  to  see  him  trying  not 
to  see.  And  one  day  he  and  Mrs.  Barnett 
found  Mademoiselle  Vicaud  engaged  in  a 
flirtation  in  an  arbor,  indolently  allowing 
an  adoring  young  man  to  kiss  her  hand, 
his  arm  around  her  waist.  Mrs.  Barnett 
said  that  it  was  the  most  unpleasant  of 
situations  —  poor  Sir  Everard's  face,  the 
girl's  look  of  dismay,  followed  by  an  instant 
92 


THE    RESCUE 

assumption  of  coolness.  She  was  able,  al- 
most at  once,  to  show  a  humorous,  half- 
vexed,  half-tolerant  smile,  and  to  pretend 
that  she  expected  them  to  share  her  playful 
anger  against  the  hugely  embarrassed  cul- 
prit. She  behaved,  afterward,  very  badly 
about  Sir  Everard's  breaking  off  the  en- 
gagement, which  he  did  most  delicately 
and  generously.  She  had  no  dignity;  she 
was  furious,  and  showed  that  she  was. 
She  even  hinted  once  —  only  once,  but  it 
was  enough  —  at  a  breach-of-promise  suit 
and  damages. 

"  Madame  Vicaud  appeared  in  the  midst 
of  the  commotion,  and  quenched  in  a  mo- 
ment the  ugly  flicker  of  vulgarity.  The 
Barnetts  guessed  that  there  must  have 
been  a  terrible  scene  between  the  two, 
but  Madame  Vicaud  carried  off  her  daugh- 
ter, completely  quelled,  it  seemed.  She 
could  not  save  the  situation ;  she  merely 
made  it  tragic  instead  of  odious.  That  is 
the  story,"  said  Lady  Surfex,  after  a  pause 
in  which  Damier,  with  a  whitened  face, 
kept  a  sick  silence — "only  the  story,  after 

93 


THE   RESCUE 

all,  of  a  vulgar  girl  who  makes  her  mother 
piteous. 

"  I  should  love  to  meet  Madame  Vicaud. 
She  does  not  know  that  I  know,  nor,  I 
think,  does  the  girl.  The  best  thing,  I 
fancy,  would  be  if  the  girl  could  be  mar- 
ried off  to  somebody  who  understood — and 
did  n't  mind.  Don't  you  think  so  ?  Could 
we  try  to  help  Madame  Vicaud  like  that?" 

Damier  could  not  think  just  now  of 
Claire's  future ;  he  was  thinking,  persis- 
tently, of  Madame  Vicaud — seeing  her  as 
a  white  flower  sunken  up  to  the  brave  and 
fragile  petals  in  mud.  The  past  clung  to 
her  in  her  daughter  —  greedy,  husband- 
hunting,  lax,  and  vulgar.  What  must  the 
tortured  mother's  heart  have  felt  at  this 
heaping  of  shame  upon  her  proudest  head? 
How,  more  and  more,  he  understood,  and 
interpreted,  her  silences,  her  reserves  ! 

In  a  dry  voice  he  said  that  he  could 
hardly  hope  for  any  possible  atonement  to 
Madame  Vicaud. 

"Have  I  been  wrong  in  telling  you  — 
ungenerous  ?  "  asked  Lady  Surfex. 

94 


THE   RESCUE 

"  No;  right.  It  makes  one  more  able  to 
help  her;  or,  at  least,  to  feel  where  she 
most  needs  help.  It  is  only  in  lifting  the 
daughter  that  one  can  help  her." 

"We  will  lift  her!"  said  Lady  Surfex, 
with  a  glance  at  his  absorbed  face.  "And 
then,  if  we  do, —  right  out  of  the  mother's 
life, — what  will  she  do  alone? " 

"  She  would  never  allow  her  to  be  lifted 
out  of  her  life." 

"  Well,  only  in  the  literal  sense  of  going 
away  to  live  with  her  husband." 

"  Her  husband  !  It  seems  a  difficult 
thing  to  find  her  one  !  " 

"Not  so  much  to  find  one — she  is  en- 
chanting in  appearance,  I  hear — as  to  keep 
one.  But  no  doubt  she  is  wiser,  better, 
now.  And  would  you,  Eustace,  live  on 
in  Paris  indefinitely  if  the  girl  married  and 
left  her  mother  alone  ?  Is  your  friendship 
so  absorbing?  " 

He  was  able  to  look  at  her  now  with 
a  smile  for  her  acuteness. 

"  Quite  so  absorbing." 


95 


X 


ET  that  very  evening  Damierwas 
to  have  his  freshly  emphasized 
disgust  unsettled,  as  theories  are 
so  constantly  unsettled  by  new  develop- 
ments of  fact.  Claire  did  not  show  him 
a  new  fact  about  herself;  she  merely  ex- 
plained herself  a  little  further,  and  made 
it  evident  that  one  could  not  label  her 
"vulgar"  and  so  dispose  of  her. 

It  was,  curiously,  with  a  keener  throb 
of  pity,  in  the  very  midst  of  all  his  new 
reasons  for  disliking  her,  that  he  found 
her  alone  in  the  salon,  sitting,  in  her  white 
evening  dress,  near  the  open  window  — 
opened  on  the  warm  spring  twilight. 
There  was  something  of  lassitude  in  her 
posture,  the  half-droop  of  her  head  as  she 
stared  vaguely  at  the  sky,  something  of 
96 


THE   RESCUE 

passive,  patient  strength,  a  creature  that 
no  one  could  love — even — even — he  had 
wondered  over  it  more  and  more  of  late — 
her  mother  ?  The  wonder  never  came 
without  a  sense  of  fear  for  the  desecration 
that  such  a  thought  implied  in  its  forcing 
itself  into  an  inner  shrine  of  sorrow. 

His  vision  in  all  that  concerned  the 
woman  he  loved  had  something  of  a  clair- 
voyant quality.  At  times  he  felt  him- 
self closing  his  ears,  shutting  his  eyes,  to 
whispers,  glimpses,  which  as  yet  he  had 
no  right  to  see  or  hear. 

That  evening  he  was  to  dine  with  Ma- 
dame Vicaud,  Claire,  and  little  Sophie; 
and  Claire's  gown,  he  felt  in  prospective, 
would  make  poor  Sophie's  ill-fitting  blouse 
look  odd  by  contrast  in  the  box  at  the 
theater  where  he  was  afterward  to  take 
them.  He  had,  indeed,  never  seen  the 
girl  look  more  lovely.  His  over-early 
arrival  had  had  as  its  object  the  hope  of 
finding,  not  the  daughter,  but  the  mother, 
alone.  Yet,  sitting  there  in  the  quiet 
evening  air,  talking  quietly,  looking  from 

7  97 


THE   RESCUE 

dim  tree-tops  outside  to  Claire's  white  form 
and  splendid  head,  he  felt  that  the  un- 
asked-for  hour  had  its  interest,  even  its 
charm.  Claire  did  not  charm  him,  but  the 
mystery  of  her  deep  thoughts  and  shallow 
heart  was  as  alluring  to  his  mind  as  the 
merely  pictorial  attraction  of  her  beauty 
to  his  eye. 

"The  chief  thing,"  said  Claire, —  they 
had  been  talking  in  a  desultory  fashion 
about  life,  and  in  speaking  she  stretched 
out  her  arm  in  its  transparent  sleeve  and 
looked  at  it  with  her  placid,  powerful  look, 
adjusting  its  fall  of  lace  over  her  hand, — 
"the  chief  thing  is  to  know  what  you 
want  and  to  determine  to  get  it.  People 
who  do  that  get  what  they  want,  you  know 
—  unless  circumstances  are  peculiarly  an- 
tagonistic." (Damier,  in  the  light  of  his 
recent  knowledge,  found  this  phrase  very 
pregnant.)  "  You,  for  instance,  have  never 
known  exactly  what  you  wanted ;  there- 
fore you  have  got  nothing.  My  father 
knew  that  he  wanted  to  paint  well  —  you 
rarely  hear  us  speak  of  my  father,  do  you  ? 
98 


THE   RESCUE 

—  though  Mamma,  you  see,  has  his  photo- 
graph conspicuously  en  evidence  up  there, 
lest  I  should  think  too  ill  of  him — or  guess 
how  ill  she  thinks  of  him  herself.  I  hardly 
knew  my  father  at  all ;  he  was,  no  doubt, 
what  is  called  a  very  bad  man,  but  clever, 
very  clever.  He  determined  to  paint  well, 
and  he  did.  You  know  his  pictures.  I 
don't  care  about  pictures,  but  I  suppose 
there  are  few  of  that  epoch  that  can  be 
compared  to  that  Luxembourg  canvas  of 
his.  Mamma,  do  you  know,  never  goes 
to  see  it.  She  has  never  really  recovered 
from  the  shock  poor  papa  gave  her  prej- 
udices— the  prejudices  of  the  jeune  fille 
anglaise.  I "  —  she  smiled  a  little  at 
him,  gliding  quickly  past  the  silent  dis- 
pleasure that  her  last  words  had  evoked 
in  his  expression  —  "I  have  a  very  restricted 
field  for  choice;  but  I  determine  to  be  well 
dressed.  I  have  small  aims,  you  say;  but 
with  me,  as  yet,  circumstances  are  very 
antagonistic.  I  should  like  many  plea- 
sures, but  as  there  is  only  one  I  can 
achieve,  I  am  wise  as  well  as  determined; 

99 


THE    RESCUE 

what  I  do  determine  comes  to  pass.  And 
Mamma — yes,  I  am  coming  to  her.  Mam- 
ma wanted  to  be  good,  and  she  is,  you  see, 
perfectly  good.  And,  even  more  than 
that,  perhaps,  she  wanted  me  to  be  good, 
too ;  but  there  either  her  will  was  too 
weak  or  I  too  wicked — the  latter,  prob- 
ably, for  she  has  a  strong  will." 

"  Perhaps,"  said  Damier,  smiling  as  he 
leaned  back  in  his  chair,  arms  folded  and 
knees  crossed,  listening  to  her — "perhaps 
you  underestimate  her  success,  or  over- 
estimate the  Luciferian  splendor  of  your 
own  nature." 

"  I  don't  think  it  is  at  all  splendid,"  said 
Claire,  composedly  ;  "  some  wickedness 
is,  I  grant  you;  but  do  I  strike  you  as 
affecting  that  kind  ?  " 

"  I  must  own  that  you  don't." 

"  Or,  indeed,  as  affecting  anything  either 
picturesque  or  desirable  ?  "  she  pursued. 

Again  Damier  had  to  own  that  she 
affected  no  such  thing. 

"  Ah,  that  is  well.  I  should  not  like  you 
to  misinterpret  me,"  said  Claire.  "I  make 
no  poses."  And  after  a  slight  pause  in  which 
100 


THE   RESCUE 

he  wondered  anew  over  her,  she  added : 
"  I  merely  like  enjoyment  better  than  any- 
thing else  in  the  world." 

"Yours,  you  know,  is  a  very  old  philoso- 
phy— a  universe  of  will  and  enjoyment; 
but  one  must  have  a  great  deal  of  the 
former  to  attain  the  latter  in  a  world  of  so 
many  clashing  aims,"  said  Damier. 

"  Yes,  one  must." 

"  And  not  the  highest  type  of  will. 
The  world,  so  seen,  is  a  terrible  one." 

"Do  you  think  so?"  Her  look,  from 
the  sky,  drifted  lazily  down  to  him. 

"Don't  you?" 

"  No ;  I  think  it  wonderful,  enthralling, 
if  one  attains  one's  aims ;  it  is  all  beau- 
tiful, even  the  suffering — if  one  avoids 
suffering  one's  self." 

"  You  are  an  esthete  — 

While  safe  beneath  the  roof, 
To  hear  with  drowsy  ear  the  plash  of  rain." 

"Oh.  better  than  rain  —  the  tempest!" 
"  And   how   can  one   avoid    suffering, 


pray? 


101 


THE   RESCUE 

"Mats," — Claire  had  a  tolerant  smile  for 
his  naivete, —  "by  staying  under  the  roof, 
laughing  round  the  fire.  Mamma,  you  see, 
would  be  darting  out  continually  into  the 
storm." 

"Bringing  other  people  back  to  shelter." 
"And  crowding  us  uncomfortably  round 
the  fire,  getting  the  rest  of  us  wet !  "  smiled 
Claire.  "For  a  case  in  point — don't  you 
find  Sophie  a  bore  ?  She  was  going  to 
commit  suicide  when  Mamma,  through 
something  Miss  Vibert  said,  found  her. 
Yes,  I  assure  you,  the  charcoal  was  lit  — 
her  last  sous  spent  on  it.  And  really,  do 
you  know,  I  think  it  would  have  been  a 
wise  thing.  Don't  be  too  much  horrified 
at  my  heartlessness.  I  mean  that  Sophie 
will  never  enjoy  herself;  nothing  in  this 
world  will  ever  satisfy  her.  When  she  has 
enough  to  eat  she  can  realize  more  clearly 
her  higher  wants.  And  —  I  don't  want 
to  seem  more  ungenerous  than  I  am,  but, 
as  a  result,  we  have  less  to  eat  ourselves. 
Don't  look  so  stony ;  I  am  not  really  un 
mauvais  cceur.  I  would  willingly  dot 
102 


THE    RESCUE 

Sophie,  buy  her  the  best  husband  procur- 
able if  I  had  the  money ;  but  husbands 
and  houses  and  money  would  n't  make 
Sophie  comfortable,  and  I  don't  really  see 
that  much  is  gained  by  making  two  people 
less  so  in  order  to  insure  the  survival  of 
one  unfit  little  Pole." 

"I  need  hardly  tell  you  that  I  don't  share 
the  ruthless  materialism  of  that  creed. 
Who,  my  dear  young  woman,  are  you,  to 
pronounce  on  Sophie's  unfitness,  and  to 
decide  that  you,  rather  than  she,  have  a 
right  to  survival  ?  " 

Claire  looked  at  him  for  a  moment  with 
a  smile  unresentful  and  yet  rueful. 

"  How  often  you  surprise  me,"  she  said, 
"  and  how  often  you  make  me  feel  that  I 
don't,  even  yet,  quite  understand  you  !  It 
is  so  difficult  to  realize  that  a  person  so 
comprehending  can  at  the  same  time  be 
so  rigid.  With  you  tout  comprendre  is  not 
tout  par donner" 

11  By  no  means,"  Damier  owned,  unable 
to  repress  a  smile. 

"  Well,  I  would  far  rather  have  you  un- 
103 


THE   RESCUE 

derstand  me  completely,  even  it  you  can't 
forgive.  I  told  you  that  I  was  wicked ; 
one  good  point  I  have  :  I  never  pretend  to 
be  better  than  I  am." 

"And  one  better  point  you  have,  and 
that  is  that  you  are  better  than  you  know." 
Damier  spoke  lightly,  but  at  the  moment 
he  believed  what  he  spoke. 

Claire  smiled  without  replying,  and  said, 
after  a  little  silence : 

"  Of  course  you  have  seen  how  good 
Mamma  is.  You  both  of  you  have  a  moral 
perfume,  and  recognize  it  in  each  other. 
I  puzzle  and  worry  her  so  because  I  won't 
suffer,  won't  go  out  of  my  life  into  other 
people's.  You  asked  me  how  one  could 
avoid  suffering ;  really,  for  the  most  part, 
it  is  very  easy  to  avoid.  Sympathy  is  the 
fatal  thing:  to  suffer  with  —  why  should 
one  ?  It  is  a  mere  increasing  of  the  suffer- 
ing in  the  world,  if  one  comes  to  think  of 
it.  The  wise  thing  is  to  concentrate  one's 
self — to  bring  things  to  one's  self;  but 
it  is  that  wisdom  that  Mamma  will  not 
understand  in  me." 

104 


THE   RESCUE 

Damier  made  no  comment  on  these 
assertions,  and  Claire,  as  if  she  had  ex- 
pected none,  as  if,  indeed,  she  were  ex- 
pounding herself  and  her  mother  for  her 
own  benefit  as  well  as  his,  went  on  : 

"  She  is  very  energetic,  too,  Mamma, 
as  energetic  as  I  am,  but  in  a  different  way. 
She  is  always  striving — against  things ;  I 
wait.  Even  if  she  can't  see  distinctly  at 
what  she  is  aiming,  she  is  always  aiming 
at  something ;  I  never  aim  unless  I  see 
something  to  aim  at." 

"  What  things  do  you  aim  at?  "  he  now 
asked. 

"Oh  —  you  know;  things  that  Mamma 
despises  —  things  that  you  too  despise, 
perhaps,  but  that,  at  all  events,  you  under- 
stand." He  could  not  quite  interpret  the 
glance  that  rested  upon  him.  "And 
Mamma's  aims  —  I  suppose  you  don't  care 
to  hear  what  I  think  of  them  ?  " 

"  On  the  contrary,  for  you  think  very 
clearly.  But  I  know  what  she  has  aimed 
at.  What  has  she  attained  ?  " 

He  asked  himself  the  question,  indeed, 

105 


THE   RESCUE 

with  an  inner  lamentation  for  the  one  evi- 
dent, the  one  tragic  failure. 

"  Well,"  —  Claire  clasped  her  hands  be- 
hind her  head  and  looked  out  of  the  win- 
dow,—  "for  one  thing,  she  has  kept  herself 
—  she  has  n't  attained  it :  that  was  n't 
needful  —  tres  grande  dame.  She  has  al- 
ways made  herself  a  social  milieu  congenial 
to  her,  or  gone  without  one.  For  her- 
self she  would  not  choose  and  exclude  so 
carefully;  but  I  complicate  Mamma's  spon- 
taneous impulses.  The  social  milieu  has 
always  been  to  her  a  soil  in  which  to  try 
to  grow  my  soul ;  that  is  why  she  is  so 
careful  about  the  soil ;  if  it  were  not  for  me 
she  would  probably  choose  the  stoniest  and 
ugliest,  and  beautify  it  by  blooming  in  it, 
since  her  soul  is  strong  and  beneficent." 

Half  repelled  and  half  attracted  as  Da- 
mier  had  been,  it  was  now  with  more  of 
attraction  than  repulsion  that  he  listened, 
an  attraction  that  had  many  sources.  That 
she  should  so  finely  appreciate  her  mother 
was  one.  It  was  touching  —  meant  to  be 
so,  perhaps,  for  even  in  his  attraction  he 
1 06 


THE    RESCUE 

had  these  moments  of  doubt;  but  a  sin- 
cerity that  could  paint  herself  so  unbe- 
comingly and  her  mother  so  beautifully 
was  a  new  revelation  of  her  frankness. 
There  was  attraction,  too,  though  of  a 
mingled  quality,  in  her  strength  and  in  her 
apparent  indifference  to  his  impression  of 
her.  These  were  better  things  than  the 
glamour;  yet  that,  too,  he  felt,  as  when 
she  turned  her  eyes  on  him  and  said  that 
the  world  was  beautiful.  At  such  mo- 
ments something  joyous  and  conscience- 
less in  him  responded  to  her,  half  intel- 
lectual comprehension  and  half  mere  flesh 
and  blood.  It  was  a  little  swirl  of  emotion 
that  his  soul,  calm  and  disdainfully  aloof, 
could  look  down  on  and  observe,  in  no 
danger  of  being  shaken  by  it;  but  it  did 
swirl  through  him  like  a  tremulous  coil 
of  Venusberg  music ;  and  Claire,  in  her 
transparent  white,  with  her  heavy  braids 
and  grave,  shining  eyes,  gleamed  at  such 
moments  with  the  baleful  beauty  of  the 
eternal  siren.  As  long  as  one  was  human 
something  human  in  one  must  respond  to 
107 


THE   RESCUE 

that  siren  call.  Even  now,  when  he  was 
feeling,  with  some  bewilderment,  better 
things  in  her,  the  glamour  looking  from 
her  eyes,  breathing  from  her  serious  lips, 
confused  and  troubled  the  new  impulse  of 
trust  and  pity.  Half  lightly,  half  sadly, 
yet  with  a  very  gentle  kindliness,  he  said 
to  her :  "  Strong  enough  to  make  you 
flower  some  day,  let  us  believe  " ;  and,  as 
silently  she  still  gazed  upon  him :  "  That 
you  should  recognize  beauty  is  already 
a  flower,  you  know." 

Still  leaning  back,  her  arms  behind  her 
head,  still  looking  at  him,  Claire  now  said : 
"  I  owe  that  flower,  not  to  her,  but  to  you." 

He  stared  for  a  moment,  not  compre- 
hending. 

"You  mean  that  you  see  her,  appreciate 
her,  through  my  sight,  my  appreciation  ?  " 

"Yes  —  in  a  sense,  I  mean  that." 

"But,"  said  Damier,  smiling,  "you  owe 
it  to  her  that  there  is  something  beautiful 
to  see." 

He  was  mystified,  not  quite  trusting, 
yet  touched. 

1 08 


THE   RESCUE 

Claire,  without  moving,  turned  her  eyes 
on  the  door.  "Here  she  is,"  she  said; 
and  as  her  mother  entered,  she  added, 
in  the  lowest  voice  above  a  whisper,  so 
vaguely  that  it  was  like  a  fragrant  per- 
turbing influence  breathing  from  the  twi- 
light and  the  spring  air : 

"  I  like  to  owe  all  my  flowers  to  you." 

Already,  as  he  rose  to  greet  the  mother, 
he  liked  the  daughter  less 

Madame  Vicaud,  in  her  black  dress, 
with  flowing  white  about  her  wrists  and 
throat, —  a  throat  erect  and  beautiful,—  - 
had  closed  the  door  softly  behind  her,  and 
as  she  came  toward  him,  Damier,  involun- 
tarily carrying  further  his  Venusberg  simile 
of  some  moments  before,  thought  of  an 
Elizabeth  bringing  peace  and  radiance; 
yet  there  was,  too,  a  gravity  in  her  gaze, 
a  quick  intentness  that  went  swiftly  from 
her  daughter  to  him.  Then  the  smile  and 
the  lightness  masked  her.  She  took  his 
hand. 

"  Has  not  Sophie  come  yet  ?     Of  what 
have  you  been  talking  ?  " 
109 


THE   RESCUE 

"Of  life,  and  how  to  live  it,"  laughed 
Damier. 

"  Wise  young  people  !  Was  it  a  contest 
of  sublimities?"  Madame  Vicaud  laid 
down  the  evening  wrap  she  had  brought 
in,  and,  it  seemed  to  Damier,  averted  her 
face  from  him  as  she  took  up  a  box  of 
matches. 

"Do  I  ever  fight  under  the  banner  of 
sublimity,  Mamma?"  Claire  inquired,  look- 
ing out  of  the  window,  showing  once  more 
her  accustomed  lassitude  and  detachment. 
"  I  leave  those  becoming  colors  to  you  — 
and  to  Mr.  Damier." 

"  But  don't,  even  in  jest,  my  dear,  as- 
sume always  the  unbecoming  ones,"  Ma- 
dame Vicaud  replied,  still  with  all  her  light- 
ness, and  bending,  her  face  still  averted, 
to  strike  a  match.  "You  have  discovered, 
have  you  not,  Mr.  Damier,  that  it  is  diffi- 
cult for  Claire  to  assume  the  virtues  that 
she  has  ? " 

She  moved  about  the  room,  lighting  the 
candles  on  the   mantelpiece  and  on    the 
cabinet  where  her  husband's  portrait  stood; 
no 


THE   RESCUE 

and  Damier,  watching  the  swift  blackness 
of  her  girlish  figure,  the  slender  white  of 
her  uplifted  hand, —  the  black  more  black, 
the  white  more  white,  as  the  radiance  slowly 
grew  in  the  dim  room, —  still  fancied  that 
she  was  mastering  some  emotion,  hiding 
from  him  some  sudden  agitation.  There 
was  a  faint  flush  on  her  face  as  she  turned, 
gaily  and  sweetly,  blowing  out  and  tossing 
away  her  match,  to  welcome  Sophie. 


in 


XI 


I AMIER  was  well  aware  that  some 
trivial  and  purely  subjective  fancy 
or  emotion  may  oddly  color  and 
distort  reality  for  one,  and  he  was  not  quite 
able  to  decide  whether  change  there  really 
were  in  Madame  Vicaud,  or  whether  it 
was  only  in  his  imagination  that  the  differ- 
ence he  had  fancied  in  her  on  that  evening 
was  continued  during  the  following  days. 
She  seemed,  in  her  relations  with  him, 
more  intimate  and  yet  more  effaced;  and 
he  was  almost  sure  —  or  was  it  only  the 
reflection  of  his  own  solicitude  cast  upon 
her?  —  that  she  watched  him,  speculated 
upon  him,  more  than  at  any  time  in  their 
friendship,  and  always  with  that  controlled 
agitation.  It  was  almost  as  if  she  guessed 
his  new  knowledge  and  understanding  of 
112 


THE   RESCUE 

her  sorrows  and  humiliations;  as  if  she 
wondered  how  much  he  knew,  and  how 
much  he  was  going  to  let  her  see  that  he 
knew.  And  if  she  seemed  more  intimate 
yet  more  effaced,  Claire,  for  a  little  while 
at  all  events,  was  less  intimate  yet  more 
in  evidence.  He  had  the  rather  uncom- 
fortable feeling  that  Claire  had  implied 
on  that  evening  more  than  he  had  been 
able  to  understand;  that  she  had  laid  upon 
him  some  responsibility  that  he  really  never 
had  undertaken  to  accept :  but  she  did 
not  emphasize  it  further,  seemed  content 
to  let  it  remain  indefinitely  apprehended 
by  him,  and  the  slight  discomfort  and  per- 
plexity he  had  felt  passed  from  his  mind, 
leaving  only  in  a  half-conscious  undercur- 
rent the  mood  of  vague  doubt  and  with- 
drawal, mingling  with  a  deeper  pity,  a 
deeper  desire  to  help  —  for  her  own  sake 
now  as  well  as  for  her  mother's. 

It  was  odd,  this  hint  of  withdrawal  and 
formality,  in  the  midst  of  a  greater  kind- 
ness, when  Claire  occupied  so  much  more 
conspicuously  the  foreground.  She  was 

"3 


THE   RESCUE 

now  always  with  her  mother ;  was  a  third 
in  all  talks  and  readings,  listening,  with 
eyes  almost  ironically  vacant,  her  hands 
lying  beautifully  indolent  in  her  lap,  while 
Damier  read  aloud  and  her  mother  sewed. 
Claire  did  not  seem  to  have  stepped  for- 
ward, but  her  mother  seemed  to  have 
stepped  back;  and  from  the  background — 
a  mysterious  one  to  his  odd,  new  ap- 
prehension of  things  —  she  smiled  more 
tenderly  than  before,  and  with  yet  a 
tremor,  an  intentness,  as  though  expecting 
him  to  understand  more  than  she  could 
look. 

And  all  this  might  be  merely  an  emo- 
tional color  in  his  own  outlook  on  un- 
changed facts,  but  the  color  certainly  was 
there,  making  a  faintly  tinted  difference 
over  all  the  mental  landscape. 

It  was  during  the  first  days  of  this  dim 
perplexity  that  he  found  himself  alone  once 
more  with  Madame  Vicaud.  He  had  out- 
stayed all  her  guests  on  a  Tuesday  after- 
noon, and,  the  Viberts  having  taken  Claire 
back  to  dine  with  them,  Madame  Vicaud 
114 


THE   RESCUE 

asked  the  young  man  to  share  her  soli- 
tude. 

Now,  when  they  were  alone,  and  while 
he  sat  cutting  the  leaves  of  a  new  book 
they  were  to  read  together,  she  went  about 
the  room,  putting  things  back  in  their 
places,  closing  the  piano  —  a  little  restless 
in  her  restoration  of  composure  to  the 
room. 

Presently  she  came  to  him,  stood  beside 
him,  looking  down  at  the  book.  "Always 
friends,  you  know,"  she  said,  putting  a 
hand  on  his  shoulder  and  speaking  lightly, 
almost  incidentally. 

"  Why  not?"  Damier  asked,  looking  up 
at  her. 

"  Indeed,  why  not? "  she  returned,  smil- 
ing. "  Nothing,  I  hope,  would  ever  change 
our  friendship." 

"  Nothing  could."  She  stood  silently 
beside  him,  looking  down,  not  at  him,  but 
at  the  volume  of  essays,  and  he  added: 
"  You  will  tell  me  if  you  are  ever  in  any 
trouble  or  sorrow  where  I  could  help  you, 
if  ever  so  little  ? " 


THE   RESCUE 

"Oh,  yes;  I  will  tell  you,"  she  an- 
swered, still  with  the  lightness  that  con- 
trasted with  the  tremor  of  Damier's  voice. 

Moving  away,  she  asked  him,  presently, 
if  he  did  not  think  that  Claire's  singing 
that  afternoon  had  been  very  intelligent. 
She  had  sung  Orfeo's  song  of  search  and 
supplication  through  Hades,  her  mother 
accompanying  her  on  the  harp.  Damier 
had  not  altogether  cared  for  Claire's  in- 
terpretation of  the  song.  Claire's  voice 
had  thrown  an  enchantment  around  a 
rather  over-emotional,  yet  an  untender, 
conception  of  it. 

"  Her  voice  is  glorious,"  he  said. 

"The  song  is  to  me  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  parts  of  the  opera,"  said  Madame 
Vicaud  ;  "  that  lonely,  steadfast  love,  throb- 
bing onward,  through  horror." 

"Ah,"  was  on  Damier's  lips,  "you  have 
said  what  she  could  not  sing  "  ;  but  he  had 
long  felt  that  appreciation  of  Claire  was 
the  greatest  pleasure  he  could  give  to  her 
mother,  and  depreciation  the  greatest  pain. 
He  therefore  sat  silently  looking  at  her, 
116 


THE   RESCUE 

leaning  forward,  his  hands  clasped  around 
the  idle  book-cutter ;  and  Madame  Vicaud, 
with  all  her  calm,  went  on  presently,  tak- 
ing up  her  sewing  as  she  sat  near  the 
lamp  with  its  plain  green  shade  :  "  Do  you 
think  Claire's  life  very  gray — very  dreary?" 

The  question  from  one  who,  on  this  sub- 
ject of  her  daughter's  upbringing,  seemed 
always  inflexibly  sure  of  her  own  aims, 
surprised  Damier,  and  its  chiming  with  his 
own  recent  thoughts  disturbed  him.  After 
all,  was,  perhaps,  Claire's  gray  life  an  ex- 
planation, in  one  sense,  of  her  ugly  clutch 
at  any  brightness  ?  Yet  the  serenity,  the 
sweet,  if  laborious,  dignity  of  the  place  her 
mother  had  made  for  her  in  life,  hardly  al- 
lowed the  mitigating  supposition.  Claire's 
life  was  really  neither  gray  nor  dreary. 
He  paused,  however,  for  a  long  time  be- 
fore saying:  "From  her  point  of  view  it 
probably  is." 

"  I  should  have  liked  to  give  her  a  larger 

life,  a  life  of  more  opportunity,  more  gaiety. 

I  feel  the  narrowness  of  her  path  as  keenly 

as  she  does.     Not  that  Claire  complains." 

117 


THE   RESCUE 

"  You  have  given  her  your  best.  How 
could  she  complain  ?  "  Damier  was  not 
able  quite  to  restrain  the  resentment  he 
felt  at  the  idea  of  Claire  complaining. 

"Ah,  I  could  not  blame  her  if  she  did," 
said  Madame  Vicaud,  her  quiet  eyes  on  her 
work,  "for  mothers  personify  circumstance 
to  children ;  we  are  symbols,  to  them,  of 
baffling,  cramping  fate ;  very  often,  and 
very  naturally,  we  are  fate's  whipping-boys: 
and  when  one  is  a  young  and  talented  and 
beautiful  woman  whose  youth  is  passing 
in  giving  lessons,  in  seeing  people  who 
seldom  interest  or  amuse  her,  fate  must 
often  seem  to  deserve  blows." 

Damier,  in  the  surge  of  his  comprehen- 
sion,—  of  which  she  must  be  so  ignorant 
and  at  which  perhaps  she  yet  guessed, — 
longed  to  throw  himself  at  her  knees  :  her 
pity  for  Claire  equaled,  surpassed  his  own  ; 
and  he  had  —  not  blaming  her  for  it,  think- 
ing it,  indeed,  the  penalty  of  her  superiority 
—  thought  her  unconscious  of  Claire's 
pathos. 

"You  deepen  your  shadows  too  much," 
118 


THE   RESCUE 

he  said;  "for  a  daughter  more  like  your- 
self your  life  would  not  be  a  narrow  one." 
He  paused,  for,  though  she  did  not  lift  her 
eyes,  a  faint  flush  passed  over  Madame 
Vicaud's  face. 

"I  see  all  your  efforts  to  widen  it," he 
went  on,  hurrying  away  from  what  he  felt 
to  have  been  an  unfortunate  comparison, 
"  the  flowers  you  strew:  intellectual,  artis- 
tic interests,  friends  that  you  hope  she 
may  find  congenial,  your  delightful  teas." 

"  Oh —  our  teas  !  "  Madame  Vicaud  in- 
terrupted, smiling  with  a  rather  satirical 
playfulness.  "  No ;  our  delightful  and 
'  cultured '  little  teas  can  hardly  atone  to 
Claire.  She  should  have  the  gaiety,  the 
variety,  the  colored  experience  that  I  had 
in  my  youth.  I  can  well  imagine  that  to 
Claire's  palate  the  nourishment  I  offer  her 
is  rather  tasteless.  She  needs  excitement, 
admiration,  appreciation,  an  outlet  for  her 
energy,  her  intelligence." 

Damier  seized  the  opportunity  —  it  was, 
he  thought,  very  propitious  —  again  to  ask 
her  when  he  might  bring  some  of  his 
119 


THE   RESCUE 

friends  in  Paris  to  see  her,  suggesting  that 
so  Claire's  social  diet  might  be  pleasantly 
diversified.  Madame  Vicaud  had  more 
than  once  evaded  —  gracefully,  kindly,  and 
decisively — all  question  of  renewing  bro- 
ken ties  with  her  country-people,  or  making 
new  ones,  and  now,  again,  she  slightly 
flushed,  as  though  for  a  moment  finding 
him  tactless  and  inopportune ;  but  only 
for  a  moment:  when  she  lifted  her  eyes 
to  him,  it  was  with  all  their  quiet  confi- 
dence of  gaze. 

"  I  hardly  know  that  that  would  be 
for  Claire's  happiness  or  good.  One  must 
have  the  means  of  widening  one's  environ- 
ment if  it  is  to  be  with  comfort  to  one's  self. 
Our  means  are  too  limited  to  be  diffused 
over  a  larger  area.  You  must  not  forget, 
my  friend,  that  we  are  very  poor.  I  do 
not  like  accepting  where  I  can  offer  no- 
thing." 

"  That  is  a  false  though  a  charming 
delicacy,"  said  Damier.  "You  give  your- 
self; and  I  hope  you  won't  refuse  to  now, 
for  I  have  almost  promised  you  to  Lady 

1 20 


THE    RESCUE 

Surfex;  she  is  very  anxious  to  meet 
you." 

Madame  Vic.aud  was  silent  for  some  mo- 
ments, her  eyes  downcast  to  the  work  where 
she  put  firm,  rapid  stitches ;  then,  in  a 
voice  that  had  suddenly  grown  icy,  "  Her 
mother  did  not  recognize  me  one  day,  years 
ago,  when  she  met  me  walking  with  my 
husband,"  she  said. 

It  was  now  Damier's  turn  to  flush.  He 
nerved  himself,  after  a  moment,  to  say : 

"  But  this  is  not  the  mother." 

"  No ;  and  my  husband  is  dead  :  other- 
wise the  wish  to  meet  me  would  not  over- 
come that  disability." 

"  You  are  a  little  unjust,  my  dearest 
friend,"  said  the  young  man. 

"  I  know  the  world,"  she  replied;  but 
she  raised  her  eyes  in  saying  it,  and  looked 
at  him  with  a  sad  kindness  that  separated 
him  from  the  world  she  knew.  "  I  don't 
judge  it — only  see  it  as  it  is.  It  seeks 
happiness,  it  avoids  unhappiness.  To  be 
unfortunate  is  to  be  lost,  in  its  eyes  —  to 
sink  from  sight.  To  be  fortunate  is  to  have 

121 


THE   RESCUE 

a   radiance  around  one ;    and   the   world 
seeks  radiance." 

After  looking  at  him  she  again  bent  her 
eyes,  and  still  sewed  on  while  she  spoke. 
"  When  I  needed  it,  it  abandoned  me. 
When  I  was  in  the  dark,  it  did  not  look 
for  me.  I  strayed  —  through  stubborn 
folly,  perhaps ;  perhaps,  too,  through  gen- 
erous ignorance  —  into  a  quicksand,  and 
not  a  hand  was  held  out  to  me.  I  was 
allowed  to  sink ;  I  was  declassee,  I  am  de- 
classee,  in  the  eyes  of  all  of  those  who  were 
of  my  world."  The  cold  flame  of  a  long 
resentment  burned  in  her  steady  voice. 
"  I  have  tested  average  human  nature,"  she 
resumed,  after  a  slight  pause,  in  which 
he  saw  her  breast  heave  slowly.  "  It  is 
a  severe  test,  I  own ;  but,  after  it,  it  is  with 
difficulty  that  I  can  trust  again.  I  have 
no  wish  to  know  people  who,  if  I  were 
in  dire  straits,  would  pass  over  on  the 
other  side  of  the  way.  The  few  friends  I 
have  I  have  proved  —  the  comtesse,  Ma- 
dame De"pressier,  Lady  Vibert,  Monsieur 
Daunay, —  who  had  much  to  bear  from  my 
122 


THE   RESCUE 

husband,  —  Sophie ;  there  are  a  few  more, 
very  few ;  and  then,  you,  my  friend." 

She  stopped  sewing  —  the  rapid  move- 
ments of  her  hand  had  been  almost  auto- 
matic—  and  looked  at  him,  her  work 
falling  to  her  knee.  "  Come  here,"  she 
said,  holding  out  her  hand  to  him,  "come 
here.  Have  I  seemed  harsh  to  you  ? " 
Her  sudden  smile  dwelt  on  him  with  a 
divine  sweetness.  "  I  am  harsh  —  but  not 
to  you." 

Damier,  with  an  eagerness  almost  pa- 
thetically boyish,  had  sprung  to  her  side, 
and  she  took  his  hand,  smiling  up  at  him. 
"  Not  to  you.  You  have  enlarged  my 
trust  —  need  I  say  how  much  ?  Don't  ask 
me  to  alloy  it  with  dubious  admixtures." 

His  love  for  her  was  yet  so  founded 
on  a  sort  of  sacred  fear  that  at  this  mo- 
ment of  delicious  happiness  he  did  not 
dare  to  stoop  and  confess  all  with  a  lover's 
kiss  upon  her  hair,  did  not  even  dare  to 
look  a  confession  of  more  than  a  respon- 
sive affection. 

She  pressed  his  hand,  still  smiling  at 

123 


THE   RESCUE 

him,  and  then,  resuming  her  sewing, 
"Sit  near  me,"  she  said,  "so  I  can  see 
that  you  are  not  fancying  that  I  am  harsh 
with  you ! " 

At  such  moments  he  could  see  in  her 
eyes,  that  caressed  one,  made  sweetest 
amends  to  one,  touches  of  what  must  once 
have  been  enchanting  roguishness. 

"  But  I  am  still  going  to  risk  your  harsh- 
ness," he  said ;  "I  am  still  going  to  ask 
you  to  let  your  trust  in  me  include  my 
friend.  She  would  stand  tests.  Won't 
you  take  my  word  for  it?  " 

"  I  believe  that  I  would  take  your  word 
for  anything." 

"  And,"  said  Damier,  looking  his  thanks, 
"  all  you  say  is  true.  I  don't  want  to  justify 
man's  ways  to  man ;  and  yet  ordinary 
human  nature,  with  its  almost  inevitable 
self-regarding  instinct,  its  climb  toward 
happiness,  its  ugly  struggle  for  successful 
attainment  of  it,  is  more  forgetful  than  cruel 
toward  unhappiness.  One  must  be  patient 
with  it;  one  must  remember  that  only  the 
exceptional  natures  can  rise  above  that 
124 


THE   RESCUE 

primitive  instinct.  To  take  the  other  road 
is  to  embrace  the  sacrifice  of  all  the  second- 
rate  joys —  the  only  real  joys  to  the  aver- 
age human  being.  One  must  either  yield 
to  the  instinct  or  fight  it,  and  most  people 
are  too  lazy,  too  skeptical  of  other  than 
apparent  good,  to  do  that.  And  then  you 
must  remember — I  must,  for  how  often  I 
have  struggled  with  these  thoughts  !  —  that 
misfortune  is  a  mask,  a  disguise.  One 
can't  be  recognized  and  known  when  one 
wears  it;  one  can't  show  one's  self;  if  one 
could  there  would  perhaps  be  responses. 
People  are  base  —  most  of  them  are  base, 
perhaps ;  but  sometimes  they  are  only  blind 
or  stupid." 

"  I  sometimes  think  that  I  am  all  three," 
said  Madame  Vicaud,  after  a  little  pause. 
"  Misfortune's  distorting  mask  has  become 
in  me  an  actuality.  I  am  perhaps  blinded; 
certainly,  as  I  told  you,  warped  and  hard- 
ened. I  used  not  to  be  so ;  it  was,  I  sup- 
pose, latent  in  me :  I  could  not  bear  the 
fiery  ordeal ;  the  good  shriveled  and  the 
dross  remained." 

125 


THE    RESCUE 

She  spoke  with  a  full  gravity,  no  hint 
of  plaintive  self-pity,  no  appeal  for  contra- 
diction, in  her  voice ;  yet,  on  raising  her 
saddened  eyes,  she  had  to  smile  when  she 
met  his  look. 

"I  see,"  she  said,  "that  you  are  deter- 
mined to  take  me  at  your  own  valuation, 
not  at  mine." 

She  turned  the  talk  after  that ;  she  could 
seldom  be  led  to  talk  of  herself,  and  not 
until  dinner  was  over,  not  until,  after  it, 
he  had  read  to  her  for  an  hour,  did  she 
return  to  its  subject.  Then  it  was  when 
he  rose  to  go  that,  giving  him  her  hand  in 
farewell,  she  said : 

"  Bring  your  friend ;  I  shall  be  glad  to 
see  her." 


126 


XII 

was  as  a  result  of  this  new 
friendship,  which  rapidly  spread 
into  half  a  dozen,  that  Damier, 
who  seemed  to  himself  to  be  walking 
among  echoes  of  the  past  and  whispered 
prophecies  of  the  future,  received  yet  an- 
other hint,  another  faint  yet  significant 
revelation,  of  Madame  Vicaud's  attitude 
toward  her  daughter. 

In  the  more  or  less  fluctuating  social 
world  of  English  Paris,  the  beautiful  and 
distinguished  mother  and  her  beautiful  and 
effective  daughter  struck  a  novel  and  quite 
resounding  note, —  too  resounding  for  Ma- 
dame Vicaud's  taste,  Damier  at  once  felt, — 
a  note  well  sustained  by  a  harmony  so  de- 
cisive as  Lady  Surfex,  Mrs.  Wallingham 
(another  new  friend),  and  Damier  himself. 
127 


THE    RESCUE 

That  Madame  Vicaud  disliked  feeling  her- 
self a  note  sustained  by  any  harmony, 
Damier  guessed.  That  she  mastered  the 
dislike  for  his  sake,  he  knew.  He  knew 
that  she  would  do  a  great  deal  for  his  sake 
—  a  great  deal  for  Lady  Surfex,  too.  She 
and  Lady  Surfex  liked  each  other  ab- 
solutely. But  it  was  through  Lady  Sur- 
fex, and  her  secret  alliance  with  Damier, 
that  the  problem  of  Claire,  instead  of  being 
unraveled,  was  the  more  deeply  involved. 
Claire  evidently  enjoyed  this  new  phase 
of  life.  She  had  now  quite  frequent  op- 
portunities for  displaying  her  gowns  and 
her  voice  and  her  dancing  at  receptions 
and  balls.  Yet,  already,  among  her  new 
entourage,  she  had  shown  her  affinity  with 
its  less  desirable  members.  A  rich,  fashion- 
able, and  rather  tawdry  Englishwoman 
took  a  great  fancy  to  her;  and  Mrs. 
Jefferies  was  the  sister  of  a  fashionable 
and  tawdry  brother,  Lord  Epsil,  who  at 
once  manifested  a  decided  interest  in  the 
red-haired  beauty,  pronounced  her  to  be 
like  Sodoma's  Judith,  and  made  her 
128 


THE    RESCUE 

mother's  withdrawal  of  her  from  his  com- 
pany the  more  noticeable  by  his  persistent 
seeking  of  hers. 

"It  is  really  too  bad,"  Lady  Surfex  said 
to  Damier.  "She  flirts  outrageously  with 
the  man  —  if  one  can  call  that  indolent 
tolerance  flirting.  I  hope  that  she  realizes 
that  he  is  a  bad  lot.  From  a  purely 
worldly  point  of  view  he  can  be  of  no  ad- 
vantage to  her.  He  is  married  and  has 
not  a  nice  reputation." 

"  She  may  not  realize  it,  she  may  be  in- 
different to  it ;  but  her  mother  realizes  and 
is  not  indifferent." 

"And  we  wanted  to  spare  her  such 
watchfulness  !  "  sighed  Lady  Surfex. 

"  It  seems  that  we  can  spare  her  nothing," 
Damier  replied.  At  the  same  time  he  felt 
that  Claire  could  be  accused  of  nothing 
worse  than  too  great  a  tolerance.  Once 
or  twice  she  spoke  to  him  of  Lord  Epsil 
with  half-mocking  insight.  "  He  is  not 
like  you,"  she  said ;  "  the  difference  amuses 
me."  Claire's  intelligence  was,  after  all, 
her  best  safeguard  in  all  that  did  not  touch 
9  129 


THE    RESCUE 

matters  of  delicate  taste,  and  Damier's 
only  way  of  helping  her  mother  was  to 
watch  with  her — to  constitute  himself  a 
sort  of  elder  brother  in  his  attitude  toward 
Claire,  and  to  try,  by  being  much  with 
Claire  himself,  to  make  Lord  Epsil's  wish 
to  be  with  her  less  able  to  manifest  itself. 
The  faint  yet  significant  hint  of  what 
Madame  Vicaud's  real  feelings  toward  her 
daughter  were  came  to  him  one  evening 
at  a  dance,  when  she  sat  beside  Lady  Sur- 
fex,  more  beautiful,  with  her  white  face,  her 
thick  gray  hair,  in  the  dignity  of  her 
black  dress,  than  any  other  woman  there. 
He  then  saw  on  her  face,  as,  fanning  her- 
self slowly,  her  head  a  little  bent,  she 
watched  Claire  dance,  a  concentration  of 
the  somberness  it  sometimes  showed.  It 
was  a  moment  only  of  unconscious  revela- 
tion ;  in  another  she  had  turned,  with  her 
quiet  and  facile  gaiety,  to  a  laughing 
comment  of  her  companion's.  But  Damier, 
following  that  momentary  brooding  look, 
saw  in  a  flash  its  interpretation  on  the 
daughter's  face.  Claire  was  dancing,  ex- 
quisitely dressed,  calm,  competent,  com- 
130 


THE   RESCUE 

placent,  as  noticeable  and  as  graceful  a 
figure  as  any  in  the  room.  And  yet  —  he 
had  felt  it  from  the  first,  but  never  so 
clearly,  so  tragically,  as  through  that  som- 
ber maternal  gaze — Claire  was  ill-bred. 
It  was  that  her  mother  should  see  her  so 
that  made  the  revelation. 

The  somberness  was  not  a  fear  of  what 
others  thought ;  she  was,  he  knew,  almost 
arrogantly  indifferent  to  what  people 
thought :  it  was  what  she  herself  thought 
that  had  gloomed  her  brow.  And  that  she 
should  see,  should  recognize,  that  affection 
should  not  mercifully  have  blinded  her, 
filled  Damier  with  a  sort  of  consternation. 
Again  all  the  ugly  visions  of  Claire  crossed 
his  mind,  and  now,  indeed,  the  mother 
stood  transfixed  beside  them,  for  she,  too, 
saw  such  visions.  Ill-bred  was  a  trivial, 
mitigating  word. 

He  realized  that  this  very  quality — call 
it  what  one  would  —  in  Claire  was  the 
cause  of  her  effectiveness,  the  reason,  too, 
that  his  hopes  for  her  would  probably  re- 
main unfulfilled. 

She  was  a  woman  upon  whom,  when 


THE   RESCUE 

she  entered  a  room,  all  men's  eyes  turned. 
Her  beauty  was  like  the  deep,  half-trium- 
phant, half-ominous  note  of  brazen  instru- 
ments. But  she  was  not  a  woman  that 
men  of  Madame  Vicaud's  world,  of  Lady 
Surfex's  world,  would  care  to  marry.  Had 
she  been  an  heiress, —  and  she  was  of  the 
type  that  one  associates  with  unfragrant 
and  recent  wealth, —  had  it  not  been  for  her 
poverty,  her  essential  obscurity,  she  would 
no  doubt  have  been  enrolled  among  the 
powerful  young  women  who  are  watched 
with  admiring  envy  as  they  advance  to- 
ward a  luminous  match.  Claire  had  quite 
the  manner  of  placid  advance,  quite  the 
manner  (and  how  detestable  to  her  mother 
the  manner  must  be!)  of  a  young  woman 
bent  upon  "  getting  on."  But  though  her 
indolent  self-assurance  made  people  give 
way  before  her,  made  her  talked  of  and 
something  of  a  personage,  she  was,  as  a 
result  of  her  launching,  far  more  likely  to 
become  notorious  than  eminent.  Any 
success  of  Claire's  must,  like  herself,  be 
ill-bred,  tainted. 

132 


THE    RESCUE 

That  Claire  felt  this,  he  doubted,  or 
even  that,  if  felt,  she  would  mind ;  but  that 
Madame  Vicaud  felt  it  he  now  agonized 
in  knowing.  And  she  had  asked  for  her 
daughter  neither  eminence  nor  a  luminous 
match ;  she  had,  he  now  saw,  been  glad  to 
shield  her  with  obscurity.  That  she  might 
become  notorious,  fulfil  herself  completely 
in  so  becoming,  would  be  the  bitterest  drop 
in  her  cup  that  fate  could  reserve  for  her. 

If  she  dreaded  it,  she  kept,  at  all  events, 
a  stoic's  calm  above  the  dread.  And  her 
restrictions,  delicate,  subtle,  unemphasized, 
were  about  Claire  on  every  side;  her  un- 
obtrusive watchfulness  was  constantly  upon 
her.  With  a  cheerful  firmness  she  held 
Claire  to  her  duty  of  earning,  as  Claire 
had  said,  "the  butter  for  her  bread," 
and  thwarted,  without  seeming  to  thwart, 
many  of  her  social  opportunities.  Da- 
mier  saw,  though  only  faintly,  under  the 
surface  of  appearance  her  dexterity  kept 
smooth,  the  constant  drama  of  the  con- 
flict, a  conflict  that  never  became  open  or 
avowed.  He  saw  that  Madame  Vicaud's 

133 


THE   RESCUE 

cleverness  was  so  great  that  even  Claire 
hardly  knew  that  there  was  a  conflict; 
but  after  what  he  had  seen  in  the  mother's 
eyes  on  the  night  of  the  dance,  he  under- 
stood, at  least,  for  what  she  was  fighting. 

Damier  still  felt  the  subtle  change  in 
his  relations  with  Claire  and  Madame  Vi- 
caud,  and  he  had  by  this  time  adapted  him- 
self to  it —  adapted  himself  to  seeing  Claire 
more  constantly,  seeing  Madame  Vicaud 
more  rarely  alone,  encouraged  as  he  was 
in  this  sacrifice  by  the  strong  impression 
that  in  so  doing  he  was  pleasing  her,  and 
was  emphasizing  that  silent,  yet  growing, 
nearness  and  intimacy. 

The  silence  was  part  of  her  extreme  deli- 
cacy, and  of  her  fineness  of  perception  ;  it 
showed  that  his  brotherly  attitude  toward 
Claire  was  what  she  had  hoped  for,  and  it 
was  almost  maternal  in  its  sweetness  of  rec- 
ognition to  him,  its  loyalty  of  speechless- 
ness  toward  the  other  child,  the  child  that 
—  he  knew  it  so  clearly  now  —  could  only 
give  her  profoundest  pain  ;  such  a  silence 
would  a  mother  keep  with  the  child  that 
gave  her  happiness. 

134 


THE   RESCUE 

He  had  never  more  strongly  felt  this 
queer  medley  of  influences  than  on  one 
warm  summer  evening  when  he  and  Ma- 
dame Vicaud  sat  outside  the  salon  on  the 
high  balcony  that  overlooked  the  garden. 
They  had  dined, —  he  and  Monsieur  Dau- 
nay,  and  Claire  and  her  mother, —  and 
now  Claire  and  Monsieur  Daunay  had 
established  themselves  at  the  piano  in  the 
distant  end  of  the  salon,  the  pale  radiance 
of  two  candles  enveloping  them  and  deep- 
ening the  half-gloom  in  the  room's  wide 
spaces. 

Outside  the  twilight  lingered,  though 
beneath  them  the  June  foliage  made  mys- 
teries of  gloom ;  the  warm  breathing  of  the 
summer  ascended  in  fragrance  from  still 
branches ;  the  faint  stars  above  shone  in  a 
pale  sky. 

They  were  both  very  silent,  Damier 
looking  at  her,  and  she  with  eyes  mu- 
singly downcast  to  the  trees.  Her  face,  he 
thought,  showed  a  peculiarly  deep  content- 
ment; more  than  that,  perhaps  :  for  he  still 
felt  the  whisper  of  a  mystery  ;  still  felt,  in 
all  the  peace  between  them,  a  hint  of  per- 

135 


THE   RESCUE 

plexity ;  still  divined  that,  though  she  was 
tranquil,  her  tranquillity  had  been  wrested 
from  some  struggle, —  a  struggle  that  she 
had  hidden  from  him, —  as  though  she  had 
yielded  something  with  pain,  even  though, 
now,  she  was  satisfied.  Patience  as  much 
as  tranquillity  was  upon  her  lips  and  brow; 
and  yet  he  knew  that,  insensibly,  she  had 
come  to  lean  upon  the  new  strength  he 
brought  into  her  life ;  that  she  depended 
upon  him,  though  she  confided  so  little; 
that  soon,  very  soon,  her  eyes  must  answer 
the  unspoken  question  in  his,  and  solve,  in 
the  answer,  all  mysteries.  Indeed,  he  said 
to  himself  that,  Claire's  harassing  problem 
all  unsolved,  he  could  not  wait  much  longer; 
he  must  know  just  where  he  stood  with 
her,  and  tell  her  where  he  wished  to  stand. 
Now,  as  they  sat  there,  listening  to  Claire's 
richly  emotional  voice, —  a  voice  that  ex- 
pressed so  much  more  than  it  felt, — it  was 
Claire's  voice,  just  as  it  was  the  thought 
of  Claire,  that  disturbed  the  peace,  jarred 
upon  the  aspiration  of  his  thoughts.  Its 
beauty  seemed  to  embroider  the  chaste  and 
136 


THE    RESCUE 

dreaming  stillness  with  an  arabesque  of 
opulent  curves  and  flaunting  tendrils.  Our 
imaginative  young  man  could  almost  see  a 
whiteness  invaded  by  urgent  waves  of  pur- 
ple and  rose  and  gold.  He  stirred,  shifted 
his  position  involuntarily  and  uneasily  — 
wished  Claire  would  stop  singing;  her 
voice  curiously  irritated  him. 

Madame  Vicaud  sat  with  her  back  to 
the  open  window,  and  Damier,  beside  her, 
could  not  see  into  the  room  without  turn- 
ing his  head.  He  did  happen,  however, 
to  turn  his  head  during  a  humming  pause. 
Monsieur  Daunay's  hands  were  still  held 
on  the  last  chord,  while,  as  Damier  thought, 
he  demonstrated  to  Claire  some  improve- 
ment in  her  rendering  of  the  note  that  had 
just  soared  above  it.  But  as  he  turned 
lazily  to  glance  at  them,  Damier  saw  a 
strange,  an  unexpected  thing,  a  thing 
poignantly  disagreeable  to  him.  Mon- 
sieur Daunay's  face,  vividly  illuminated, 
was  upturned  to  Claire's;  he  was  speaking 
below  his  breath,  under  cover  of  the  hum- 
ming chord,  and  with  a  look  of  humble  yet 

137 


THE   RESCUE 

reproachful  entreaty.  Claire,  a  swift  finger 
on  her  lips  as  she  bent  to  the  music,  had  a 
glance  for  the  window,  and  Damier's  eyes 
of  astonishment  and  dismay  met  hers. 
He  looked  away  abruptly  —  too  abruptly 
for  a  successful  controlling  of  the  dismay 
and  astonishment,  for  he  found  Madame 
Vicaud's  eyes  upon  him,  and  he  saw  in  a 
moment  that  they  had  been  upon  him 
during  the  swift  incident  —  eyes  filled  with 
wonder  and  with  an  ignorant  yet  intense 
fear.  Memories  of  another  scene,  hand- 
kissings  in  an  arbor,  flashed  upon  him, 
and  he  knew  her  thoughts.  She  met  his 
look  —  as  empty  as  he  could  make  it  — 
for  a  long  moment ;  but  after  it  she  did  not, 
also,  glance  into  the  room,  where  the  song 
now  flowed  with  an  almost  exaggerated 
spirit.  Wrapping  her  arms  more  closely 
in  her  light  shawl,  she  sat  quite  silent,  the 
effort  to  control,  to  master  the  crowding 
of  her  surmises  apparent  in  her  rigidly  still 
profile.  Damier  guessed  that  the  surmises 
must,  inevitably,  suspect  Claire,  not  Mon- 
sieur Daunay.  In  justice  to  Claire,  after 

138 


THE   RESCUE 

the  involuntary  silence  of  his  dismay,  he 
could  not  longer  be  silent.  After  all,  and 
he  drew  a  long  breath  in  realizing  it, 
Claire's  past  shadowed  perhaps  too  deeply 
her  present ;  after  all,  the  fact  was  not  so 
alarming. 

"  Have  you  never  suspected,"  he  said, 
"that  Monsieur  Daunay cares  for  Claire?" 

She  did  not  reply ;  turning  a  wan  face 
upon  him,  her  eyes  still  averted,  she  shook 
her  head  in  a  helpless  negation  of  all  such 
knowledge. 

"  Don't  be  distressed,"  said  Damier,  ter- 
ribly afraid  that  he  too  much  showed  his 
own  distress;  "it  is  unfortunate  for  him, 
and  wrong  of  him  to  keep  such  feeling  from 
you  ;  I  happened  just  now  to  see  its  reve- 
lation in  his  face  as  he  looked  at  Claire." 

Madame  Vicaud,  for  another  moment, 
said  nothing,  struggling,  he  knew,  with 
those  awakened  memories  —  or  were  they 
not  always  awake,  clutching  at  her? 

"He  may  care  for  Claire,"  she  then  said 
faintly,  "but  she  cannot  care  for  him; 
that — you  know  —  is  impossible." 

139 


THE   RESCUE 

"Only  enough,  I  am  sure,  to  wish  to 
shield  him." 

"  I  could  never  have  suspected.  He  is 
an  old  friend,  a  trusted  friend.  I  must 
speak  to  him." 

"  Let  me  speak  to  him  —  may  I  ?  I 
will  walk  home  with  him  to-night." 

A  certain  relief  in  Madame  Vicaud  was 
taking  a  long,  deep  breath,  and  nothing 
could  more  clearly  have  assured  him  of  the 
position  he  held  in  her  eyes  than  the  half- 
hesitating  yet  half-assenting  consideration 
she  gave  to  his  rather  odd  proposal. 

"  But,"  she  said,  "will  he  not  wonder  — 
by  what  right  —  " 

"  I  speak  ?  By  the  right  of  my  fond- 
ness for  you." 

"And  for  Claire,  yes,"  said  Madame 
Vicaud,  thoughtfully. 

Damier  had  not  at  all  intended  to  imply 
this  amendment,  especially  at  a  moment 
when  he  was  so  sure  of  not  being  at  all 
fond  of  Claire;  yet  the  trust  of  her  in- 
clusion was  so  unconscious  of  possible 
contradiction  that  he  could  not  trouble  it. 
140 


THE   RESCUE 

"But  what  will  you  say?"  she  went 
on.  "Any  reproach  should  come  from 
me;  and  what  reproach  could  you  make? 
I  cannot  think  he  is  more  than  piteous; 
people  fall  in  love  with  Claire  —  often." 

Damier  was  feeling  that  if,  by  chance, 
Monsieur  Daunay  were  more  than  piteous, 
he  must  stand  between  Madame  Vicaud 
and  the  discovery. 

"I  will  be  all  discretion  —  all  delicacy. 
I  will  only  say  that  I  was  the  unsuspecting, 
the  involuntary  witness  of  the  incident; 
and  that,  as  your  friend,  almost,  I  might 
say," — he  hesitated,  seeking  a  forcible 
word  in  place  of  the  one  he  dared  not 
use, — "your  son,  I  must  ask  him  how 
much  Claire  knows  of  it  —  how  far  it 
should  interfere  with  your  confidence  in 
him." 

She  was  silent  for  a  long  moment,  her 
head  still  turned  from  him  to  a  silhouetted 
profile  against  the  sky ;  it  was  now  so 
much  darker  that  he  could  see  little  more 
than  its  vague  black  and  white,  yet  he 
thought  that,  in  her  stillness,  she  flushed 
141 


THE   RESCUE 

deeply.  In  her  voice,  when  she  spoke, 
there  was  the  steadiness  that  nerves  itself 
over  a  tremor,  yet  there  was,  too,  a  greater 
relief.  "Well,"  she  said.  The  word  as- 
sented to  all  he  asked.  She  did  not  look 
at  him  again,  and  presently,  as  the  music 
had  ceased,  rose  and  went  into  the  room. 
Claire  was  pointing  out  to  Monsieur  Dau- 
nay  a  picture  in  a  magazine,  apparently 
all  placidity ;  but  in  a  moment  near  the 
parting,  while  Madame  Vicaud,  with  an 
equal  calm,  stood  speaking  to  Monsieur 
Daunay  near  the  piano,  Claire  said  to 
Damier,  quietly  but  intently : 

"You  have  not  betrayed  me  to 
Mamma  ?  " 

"  Betrayed  you  ?  "  Damier  questioned, 
ice  in  his  voice. 

"  Him,  rather,"  she  amended.  "  Not 
that  there  is  anything  to  betray,  only 
Mamma  would  find  it  so  shocking  that  a 
married  man  should  be  in  love  with  me ; 
he  is  so  bete  —  Monsieur  Daunay  —  to 
have  forgotten  that  you  were  out  there." 

"I  must  tell  you  that  your  mother 
142 


THE   RESCUE 

guessed  that  I  had  seen  something.  I 
told  her  what  I  had  seen,  that  he  loved 
you,  though  not  that  you  seemed  to  ac- 
cept his  love." 

For  a  moment  she  gazed  into  his  eyes, 
at  first  with  a  gravity  that  studied  him, 
and  then  with  a  light  effrontery.  "Accept 
it !  par  exemple  !  "  she  exclaimed,  and  she 
put  her  hand  on  his  arm  with  a  half-caress- 
ing reassurance.  "Set  your  mind  at  rest! 
I  am  only  sorry  for  him.  Meet  me  to- 
morrow morning  at  ten  at  the  Porte  Dau- 
phine ;  we  can  have  a  little  walk  in  the 
Bois.  I  want  to  tell  you  all  about  it." 

Monsieur  Daunay  was  going,  and  Da- 
mier,  as  he  turned  from  Claire,  met 
Madame  Vicaud's  eyes.  Their  wide,  dark 
gaze  was,  for  the  instant  in  which  she  let 
him  see  it,  piteous  and  almost  wild.  He 
interpreted  their  fear,  though  he  could  not 
quite  define  their  question.  All  the  mother 
was  in  them.  Did  he  despise  her  child, 
as  others  did  ?  He  mustered  his  bravest, 
most  gravely  confident  smile,  in  answer  to 
them,  as  he  pressed  her  hand  in  parting. 

H3 


THE   RESCUE 

For  another  instant  they  met  his,  saw  his 
smile,  and  answered  it  with  a  look  tragi- 
cally grateful  in  one  so  proud.  He  had 
never  stood  so  near  her  as  at  that  moment. 

Damier  went  out  with  the  Frenchman, 
and  once  in  the  cool,  dim  street,  he  dashed 
at  the  subject:  "Monsieur  Daunay,  I 
must  at  once  tell  you  that  inadvertently 
this  evening,  through  your  own  indiscre- 
tion, I  discovered  your  secret.  You  are 
a  married  man ;  you  are  Madame  Vicaud's 
trusted  friend ;  and  you  love  her  daughter." 

Monsieur  Daunay  stopped  short  in  the 
street,  exasperation  rather  than  embarrass- 
ment in  his  face.  He  fixed  Damier  with 
very  steady  and  very  hostile  eyes. 

"  And  what  then  ?  "  he  asked. 

"You  have  a  perfect  right,"  said  Da- 
mier, "to  ask  what  business  it  is  of  mine, 
and  I  can  only  answer  that  I,  too,  am  a 
trusted  friend  of  Madame  Vicaud's,  and, 
Monsieur  Daunay,  a  friend  whom  she  can 
trust." 

"  Ah,  Monsieur  Damier,  you  have — I  do 
not  deny  it  —  more  rights  than  I,  who  have 
144 


THE   RESCUE 

none,"  said  Daunay,  in  a  voice  the  bitter- 
ness of  which  was  a  revelation  to  Damier. 
"I  have  no  rights,  only  misfortunes.  Why 
not  add  that  you  are  Madame  Vicaud's 
trusted  friend,  and  that  you,  too,  love  her 
daughter  ? " 

Damier  felt  a  relief  disproportionate,  he 
realized,  to  any  suspicions  he  had  allowed 
himself  to  recognize.  The  atmosphere, 
after  the  unexpected  thunderclap,  was  im- 
mensely cleared.  Monsieur  Daunay  was 
jealous,  and  Monsieur  Daunay  was  evi- 
dently piteous  only.  With  all  the  vigor  of 
a  sudden  release  from  bondage,  he  ex- 
claimed: "You  are  utterly  mistaken;  I 
have  no  such  rights :  I  do  not  love  Made- 
moiselle Vicaud." 

"  What  do  you  say?  "  Monsieur  Dau- 
nay's  astonishment  was  almost  blank. 

"  I  do  not  love  her  in  the  very  least." 

"Then,"  stammered  the  Frenchman, 
"we  are  not  rivals?  You  can  then  pity 
me  —  I  am  jealous  with  none  of  the  rights 
of  jealousy." 

"None  of  the  rights?"  Damier  eyed  him. 

H5 


THE    RESCUE 

"  None,  monsieur ;  Madame  Vicaud's 
trust  in  me  is  not  unfounded,"  said  Mon- 
sieur Daunay,  with  something  of  a  slightly 
ludicrous  grandiloquence. 

"  Yet  Mademoiselle  Vicaud  knows  of 
your  attachment." 

"  I  never  declared  it;  she  guessed  it,  per- 
haps inevitably."  They  were  walking  on 
again,  and  he  shrugged  his  shoulders. 
"  Que  voulez-vous?  She  has  a  certain 
tenderness  for  me  that  gives  perception, 
and  I  adore  her  —  but  adore  her,  you 
understand."  Damier  was  understanding 
and  not  at  all  disliking  this  victim  of  the 
glamour  —  or,  was  it  not  deeper  than  that? 
Something  in  the  Frenchman's  voice 
touched  him.  Would  Claire  ever  arouse 
a  deeper  affection  than  this  ?  Not  only 
had  she  cast  her  glamour  upon  him :  he 
evidently  loved  her  —  "but  adore  her, 
you  understand,"  as  he  had  said  in  his 
expressive  French. 

His  hands  clasped  behind  him,  Monsieur 
Daunay,  with  now  a  reminiscent  confi- 
dence, shook  his  head  and  sighed  pro- 
146 


THE   RESCUE 

foundly.  "  Que  voulez-vous?  "  he  repeated. 
"  Since  her  girlhood  it  has  been  with  me 
a  hidden  passion.  Ce  que  fai  souffert!  " 
He  showed  no  antagonism  now,  no  re- 
sentment; Damier  could  but  be  grateful. 

"  Claire  has  not  suffered  through  me," 
he  went  on.  "  She  allows  me  to  love 
her,  but  she  knows  that  she  is  free.  What 
can  I  claim?  —  an  honorable  man,  and 
shackled.  Yet  —  I  have  always  hoped 
that  she  might,  generously  and  nobly, 
keep  an  unclaimed  faith  with  me.  I  have 
claimed  none,  and  yet  she  has  assured  me 
that,  as  yet,  she  loves  no  other.  I  have 
needed  the  assurance  of  late — I  confess 
it.  Your  apparent  courtship  I  could  not 
reproach  her  with, —  though  it  tore  my 
heart, —  but  her  permission  of  this  ill- 
omened  Lord  Epsil's  attentions  filled  me 
with  consternation  ;  I  have  felt  myself  jus- 
tified in  reproaching  her  for  her  legerete  in 
regard  to  this." 

"  But,"  said  Damier,  after  a  slight  pause, 
"this  unclaimed  faith  —  how  do  you  ex- 
pect her  to  keep  it  ?  " 

H7 


THE   RESCUE 

There  was  a  touch  of  embarrassment  in 
Monsieur  Daunay's  voice  as  he  answered : 
"  My  wife  and  I  have,  for  years,  been  on 
most  unfortunate  terms ;  I  have  no  re- 
proaches to  address  myself  on  her  account. 
She  is  a  confirmed  invalid,  and  of  late  her 
condition  has  been  critical.  One  must  not 
hope  for  certain  contingencies — one  must 
not,  indeed,  admit  the  thought  of  them  too 
often ;  but  —  if  they  did  arise  — " 

"I  see,"  said  Damier,  gravely;  "you 
could  claim  her.  It  is,  indeed,  a  most  un- 
pleasant contingency.  Would  it  not  be 
for  Claire's  happiness  if  you  were  not  to 
see  her  again  until  it  arose  ?  " 

"  Ah,  no,"  said  Daunay,  with  something 
of  weariness  ;  "  ah,  no  ;  her  happiness  is 
not  involved.  Claire  —  I  speak  frankly ; 
my  affection  for  her  has  never  blinded  me 
—  Claire  is  not  easily  made  unhappy  by 
her  sympathies.  It  is  only  myself  I  hurt  by 
remaining  near  her,  by  seeing  her,  as  I 
constantly  imagine,  on  the  point  of  aban- 
doning me.  But  to  leave  her  —  you  ask 
of  me  more  than  I  am  capable  of  doing." 
148 


THE    RESCUE 

Later,  when  Damier  told  him  of  Ma- 
dame Vicaud's  knowledge  of  the  situation, 
Monsieur  Daunay  heaved  another,  not  re- 
gretful, sigh. 

"  It  is  as  well.  I  will  say  to  her  what 
I  have  said  to  you.  She  will  be  generous ; 
she  will  understand." 

Damier  felt  oddly,  when  he  parted  with 
him,  that  he  might  trust  Monsieur  Daunay, 
but  that  he  trusted  Claire  less  than  ever. 


149 


XIII 

I  EXT  day,  as  Damier  waited  near 
the  Porte  Dauphine  for  Claire, 
he  could  reflect  on  his  really 
parental  situation,  but  feeling  more  the 
irritation  than  the  humor  of  it.  After  all, 
where  was  his  authority  for  this  meddling  ? 
Why  should  they  submit  to  it  ?  and  why, 
as  a  result,  should  he  submit  to  the  hear- 
ing of  Claire's  coming  self-justification? 
He  could  spare  Madame  Vicaud  nothing 
by  it,  since  she  knew  all  that  there  was 
to  know  —  and  since  it  was  better  that  she 
should  know  it.  He  had  written  to  her 
the  night  before,  on  reaching  his  hotel,  and 
told  her  of  the  talk  with  Monsieur  Daunay 
and  of  the  impression  it  had  made  upon 
him.  He  wondered  if  she  had,  meanwhile, 
had  an  equally  appeasing  talk  with  Claire. 

150 


THE    RESCUE 

This  young  woman  appeared  quite  punc- 
tually, walking  at  a  leisurely  pace  along 
the  sanded  path,  where  the  full  summer 
foliage  cast  flickering  purple  shadows. 
Claire  was  all  in  white,  white  that  fluttered 
about  her  as  she  walked ;  her  hat,  tilted 
over  her  eyes,  had  white  wings  —  like  a 
Valkyrie's  summer  helmet;  her  white  para- 
sol made  a  shadowed  halo  behind  her  head. 
As  she  approached  him  she  looked  at  him 
steadily,  with  something  whimsical,  quizzi- 
cal in  her  gaze,  and  her  first  words  showed 
no  wish  to  beat  about  the  bush. 

"You  talked  to  him  last  night?  I  talked 
a  little  to  Mamma,  or  rather  she  talked  to 
me.  I  soon  satisfied  her  that  I  did  n't  feel 
for  him,  pas  grand  comme  ga  d*  amour" 
Claire  indicated  the  smallness  she  nega- 
tived by  a  quarter  of  an  inch  of  finger-tip. 
"And  I  think  I  can  soon  satisfy  you,  too," 
she  added.  "He  told  you  everything?" 

"  Everything." 

"  And  you  are  terribly  shocked  that  an 
unmarried  young  woman  should  take 
money  from  a  married  man  who  is  in  love 


THE   RESCUE 

with  her?  Must  I  assure  you  that  our 
relations  are  absolutely  innocent  ? " 

In  his  stupefaction,  Damier  could  hardly 
have  said  whether  her  first  statement  or 
the  coolness  of  her  second  remark  —  its 
forestalling  of  a  suspicion  she  took  for 
granted  in  him  —  were  the  more  striking. 
Both  statement  and  remark  revealed  her 
character  in  a  light  more  lurid  than  even 
he  had  been  prepared  for.  He  was 
really  unable  to  do  more  than  stare  at  her. 
Claire  evidently  misinterpreted  the  stare 
yet  more  outrageously.  She  had  the  grace 
to  flush  faintly,  though  her  eyes  were  still 
half  ironic,  half  defiant. 

"  I  do  so  assure  you." 

"  I  did  not  need  the  assurance."  Da- 
mier found  his  voice,  but  it  was  hoarse. 

Claire,  in  a  little  pause,  looked  her  con- 
sciousness of  having  struck  a  very  false 
note. 

"And  now  no  assurance  would  convince 
you  that  I  am  not  very  low-minded  and 
vulgar.  Well,  I  am,  I  suppose.  Que  voulez- 
vous?  Only  don't  be  too  much  shocked 

152 


THE   RESCUE 

by  my  frankness;  don't  be  prudish.  A  man 
may  be  propriety  itself,  but  he  may  not  be 
prudish.  Remember  that  I  am  twenty- 
seven,  that  I  know  my  world  (though  how  I 
have  been  able  to  get  my  knowledge  with 
such  a  dexterously  shuffling  and  shielding 
Mamma,  I  don't  know),  and  that  I  think  it 
merely  silly  to  pretend  that  I  don't  know 
it  before  a  man  with  whom  I  am  as  inti- 
mate as  I  am  with  you.  Of  course,  on  the 
face  of  it,  to  accept  money  from  a  married 
man  who  is  in  love  with  one  does  suggest 
a  situation  usually  described  as  immoral." 

Damier  was  feeling  choked,  feeling,  too, 
that  he  almost  hated  Claire,  as  she  walked 
beside  him,  slowly  and  lightly,  opulently 
lovely,  the  flush  of  anger  —  it  was  more 
anger  than  shame  —  still  on  her  cheek. 

"  I  must  tell  you,"  he  said,  in  a  voice 
steeled  to  a  terrible  courtesy,  "that  it  is 
you  alone  who  inform  me  of  your  indebted- 
ness to  Monsieur  Daunay's  kindness.  He, 
I  now  see,  did  not  tell  me  everything." 

"What  did  he  tell  you,  then?"  she 
asked,  stopping  short  in  the  path  and  fix- 

153 


THE   RESCUE 

ing  her  eyes  upon  him,  in  her  voice  a 
rough,  almost  a  plebeian,  note. 

"That  he  adored  you,  and  that  he  could 
be  trusted." 

"  Well,  he  can  be  !  "  She  broke  into  a 
hard  laugh.  "  Le  cher  bon  Daunay!  I 
thought  that  of  course  he  would  paint  a 
piteous  picture  of  his  woes.  And  now  you 
are  furious  with  me  because  I  supposed 
that,  as  a  man  of  the  world,  you  might 
unfairly,  yet  naturally,  imagine  more  than 
he  told  you." 

Damier  made  no  reply. 

"You  are  furious,  are  you  not?" 

"  I  am  disgusted,  but  not  for  that  rea- 
son only." 

"  You  think  I  am  in  love  with  him ! " 
She  stopped  again  in  the  narrow  path. 
"  I  swear  to  you  that  I  am  not ! "  He 
would  have  interrupted  her,  but  her  volu- 
bility swept  past  his  attempt.  "  If  he 
had  been  free  I  would  have  married  him 
—  I  own  it ;  at  one  time,  at  least,  I  would 
have  married  him.  I  am  French  in  my 
freedom  from  sentimental  complications 
on  that  subject.  I  could  have  found  no 

154 


THE   RESCUE 

other  man  in  this  country  willing  to  marry 
a  dotless  girl.  I  should  have  preferred, 
of  course,  a  mariage  cT  amour  ;  but,  given 
my  circumstances,  could  I  have  found  any- 
thing more  desirable  than  a  kind,  gener- 
ous, and  adoring  friend  like  Monsieur 
Daunay  ?  " 

"I  should  say  certainly  not,"  —  Da- 
mier  waited  with  a  cold  patience  until  she 
had  finished, — "but  again  you  have  mis- 
interpreted me ;  I  am  disgusted  not  be- 
cause you  love  Monsieur  Daunay,  but 
because  you  do  not  love  him." 

At  this,  after  a  stare,  Claire  gave  a  loud 
laugh. 

"Ah!—  cest  trop  fort!  You  can't 
make  me  believe  that  you  want  me  to  love 
him." 

"  I  don't  want  you  to  love  him ;  but  I 
say  that  the  circumstances  would  be  more 
to  your  credit  if  you  did." 

Her  face  now  showed  a  mingled  relief 
and  perplexity. 

"Ah,  it  is  the  money,  then  —  that  I 
should  accept  it !  " 

"  Can  I  make  no  appeal  to  you  for  your 

155 


THE   RESCUE 

mother's  sake  —  for  the  sake  of  your  own 
dignity  ?  " 

"  I  can  take  care  of  my  own  dignity, 
Mr.  Damier."  The  relief  was  showing 
in  her  quieter  voice,  her  fading  flush. 
"  I  see  how  angry  you  are  —  and  only  be- 
cause I  have  not  pretended  with  you.  Let 
me  explain.  I  never  pretend  with  you  :  I 
can  only  explain.  I  must  begin  at  the 
beginning  to  do  it;  and  the  beginning  and 
the  end  is  our  poverty.  Mamma  had  a 
pittance  left  to  her,  a  year  or  so  after  my 
father's  death,  by  some  relations,  and  that, 
since  then,  has  been  our  only  pied-a- 
terre.  She  would  never  accept  the  allow- 
ance, quite  a  generous  one,  too,  that  her 
family  wished  to  make  her.  I  don't  want 
to  blame  her ;  I  know  how  you  feel  about 
her;  I  appreciate  it.  But  it  was,  I  must 
say  it,  very  selfish  of  her  ;  she  should  have 
thought  more  of  me  —  the  luckless  result 
of  her  mesalliance  —  and  less  of  her  own 
pride.  I  really  hardly  know  how  she 
brought  me  up  :  though,  I  own,  she  gave 
me  a  good  education ;  I  was  always  at 

156 


THE    RESCUE 

school  during  my  father's  life — she  avoided 
that  soil  for  me,  you  may  be  sure !  I 
give  her  credit  for  all  that ;  she  must  have 
worked  hard  to  do  it.  But  she  owed  me 
all  she  could  get  for  me,  and,  I  must  say, 
she  did  not  pay  the  debt."  Claire  had 
been  looking  before  her  as  she  talked,  but 
now  she  looked  at  Damier,  and  something 
implacable,  coldly  enduring,  in  his  eye 
warned  her  that  her  present  line  of  excul- 
pation was  not  serving  her.  "  Don't  im- 
agine, now,  that  I  am  complaining — 
ungrateful,"  she  said  a  little  petulantly. 
"I  know  —  as  well  as  you  do  —  what  a 
good  mother  she  has  been  to  me.  I  only 
want  to  show  you  that  she  is  not  altogether 
blameless  —  that  she  is  responsible,  in 
more  ways  than  one,  for  me  —  for  what  I 
am.  Let  it  pass,  though.  When  I  came 
home,  a  young  girl,  full  of  life  and  eager 
for  enjoyment,  what  did  I  find  ?  Poverty, 
labor,  obscurity.  It  was  an  ugly,  a  meager 
existence  she  had  prepared  for  me,  and, 
absolutely,  with  a  certain  pride  in  it !  She 
expected  me  to  enjoy  work,  shabby  clothes, 

157 


THE    RESCUE 

grave  pursuits,  as  much  as  she  did,  or,  at 
all  events,  not  to  mind  them.  Plain  living, 
high  thinking  -—  that  was  her  idea  of  hap- 
piness for  me  !  "  Insensibly  the  ironic  note 
had  grown  again  in  her  voice.  "  I  remem- 
ber, too,  at  first,  her  taking  me  to  see  poor 
people  in  horrid  places  —  expecting  me 
to  talk  to  them,  sing  to  them ;  I  soon  put 
a  stop  to  that.  At  her  age,  with  a  ruined 
life,  it  is  natural  that  one  should  wish  to 
devote  one's  self  to  bonnes -ceuvres  ;  but  for 
me,  ah,  par  exemple ! "  Claire  gave  a 
coarse  laugh.  "  I  had  not  quite  come  to 
that!  She  gave  me  the  best  she  had  — 
all  she  had,  you  will  say ;  I  own  it :  but 
not  all  she  might  have  had.  And  then 
she  need  not  have  expected  me  to  enjoy 
—  should  not  have  been  aggrieved, 
wounded,  because  I  only  endured. 
Again, —  I  am  not  unjust,  —  it  was  not 
all  high  thinking;  she  had  her  schemes 
for  my  amusement  —  d'une  simplicite  ! 
Really,  for  such  a  clever  woman,  Mamma 
can  be  dull !  And  the  people  we  knew  ! 
We  had  a  right  —  you  know  it  —  to  le 

158 


THE   RESCUE 

vrai  grand  monde.  You  know  it,  and  you 
are  trying,  now,  to  help  me  to  it.  But 
Mamma  did  not  try.  With  a  little  manage- 
ment she  might  have  regained  her  place 
in  it;  but  no  —  her  pride  again!  She 
seemed  to  think  that  she  was  le  grand 
monde,  and  that  I  ought  to  be  satisfied 
with  that !  And  now,  with  all  this,  you 
think  it  strange  —  disgusting —  that  when 
I  saw  that  Daunay  —  le pauvre  ! —  was  in 
love  with  me  I  should  ask  him  to  continue 
to  the  daughter  the  aid  that  he  had  ex- 
tended to  the  father  !  There  again,  for  a 
clever  woman,  Mamma  is  dull  —  though 
her  dullness  has  been  to  my  advantage. 
She  can  make  money,  she  can  avoid  spend- 
ing it,  but  she  has  little  conception  of  its 
value;  she  does  the  housekeeping,  and, 
after  that,  she  leaves  the  management  of 
our  resources  to  me.  She  is  funnily  gulli- 
ble about  the  price  of  my  clothes;  the 
lessons  I  give  would  hardly  keep  me  in 
shoes  and  stockings  —  as  I  understand 
shoes  and  stockings  !  "  Claire  laughed. 
"  This  dress  that  I  have  on  —  Mamma  im- 

159 


THE   RESCUE 

agines  it  is  made  by  a  little  dressmaker 
whom  I  am  clever  enough  to  guide  with 
my  taste.  I  take  out  the  name  on  the 
waist-band  and  she  is  none  the  wiser. 
This  dress  is  a  Doucet."  There  was  now 
quite  a  blithe  complacency  in  Claire's  voice. 
"And  I  have  always  considered  myself 
amply  excusable,"  she  went  on,  "  in  ac- 
cepting the  small  pleasures  that  life  of- 
fered me.  Of  course  it  has  really  not  been 
much  that  I  have  been  able  to  accept  — 
though  he  would  willingly  —  and  he  is  not 
rich  —  give  more.  Jewels,  for  instance,  I 
have  never  dared  attempt  —  nor  even 
many  dresses ;  that  would  have  been  in- 
cautious. For  Mamma,  of  course,  must 
never  know ;  she  would  be  inexpressibly 
shocked.  I  can  see  her  face  ! " 

So  could  Damier.  He  was  conscious 
of  almost  a  wish  to  be  brutal  to  Claire, 
physically  brutal — to  strike  her  to  the  dust 
where  she  dragged  the  image  of  his  well 
beloved ;  but,  after  a  moment,  he  said  in 
a  voice  quiet  enough :  "  You  must  tell  her 
now ;  you  must  tell  her  everything." 
1 60 


THE   RESCUE 

Claire  stopped  short  in  the  path.  "  Tell 
her!" 

"You  must,  indeed."  The  full  rigor 
of  his  eyes  met  the  astonishment  of  hers. 

"  Never !  "  said  Claire,  and  in  French, 
as  if  for  a  more  personal  and  intimate 
emphasis,  she  repeated  :  "  Jamais  f  " 

"  I  will,  then  ;  it  is  an  outrage  not  to 
tell  her." 

Their  eyes  measured  each  other's  reso- 
lution. 

"If  you  do,"  said  Claire,  "shall  I  tell 
you  with  what  I  retaliate?  I  will  run 
away  with  Monsieur  Daunay.  Yes ;  I 
speak  seriously.  I  would  prefer  not  to  be 
pushed  to  that  extremity,  but  I  sometimes 
think  that  I  am  getting  a  little  tired  of 
respectability  au  quatrieme.  It  is  n't  good 
enough,  as  you  English  say ;  I  get  no 
interest  on  my  investment.  To  tell  her ! 
Now,  of  all  times,  when  I  so  need  the 
money,  when  the  small  gaieties  and  plea- 
sures you  have  brought  into  my  life 
depend  on  my  having  it,  making  an 
appearance  !  She  would  not  let  me  take 
161 


THE   RESCUE 

it.  She  would  be  glacial  —  and  firm. 
Oh,  I  have  had  scenes  with  her !  I  could 
not  stand  any  more." 

For  once  Claire  was  fully  vehement, 
her  cheeks  flaming,  her  eyes  at  once 
threatening  and  appealing.  He  could 
hardly  believe  her  serious,  and  yet  she 
silenced  him  —  indeed,  she  terrified  him. 
Claire  read  the  terror  in  his  wide  eyes 
and  whitening  lips.  Her  look  suddenly 
grew  soft,  humorous.  She  slipped  her 
hand  inside  his  arm. 

Involuntarily  he  started  from  her,  then, 
repenting,  for  even  while  he  so  loathed 
her  he  had  never  found  her  so  piteous,  "  I 
beg  your  pardon  —  but  you  horrify  me 
too  much." 

"  Come,  come,"  she  said,  and,  unre- 
sentfully,  though  with  some  determination, 
she  secured  his  arm,  "don't  take  me  au 
pied  de  la  lettre.  I  am  not  really  in  ear- 
nest ;  you  know  that ;  I  had  to  use  a  threat 
—  had  to  frighten  you.  Come."  That 
she  had  been  able  so  thoroughly  to  frighten 
him  seemed  to  have  restored  in  her  her  old 
162 


THE   RESCUE 

air  of  complacent  mastery.  "  You  are 
wide-minded,  clever,  kind.  Don't  mis- 
judge me.  Don't  push  me  to  the  wall. 
Don't  apply  impossible  standards  to  me. 
See  me  as  I  am.  By  nature,  by  tempera- 
ment, I  am  simply  a  bohemian.  It  is  n't 
my  fault  if  my  mother  happens  to  be  a 
saint,  and  a  horribly  well-bred  saint;  it 
really  is  n't  my  fault  if  she  has  handed  on 
to  me  neither  of  those  qualities.  I  am 
perfectly  frank  with  you.  From  the  first  I 
felt  that  I  could  be  frank  with  you ;  I  felt 
that  you  understood  me;  don't  tell  me 
now  that  I  was  mistaken." 

"I  do  understand  you,"  said  Damier, 
"but  you  horrify  me  none  the  less." 

"  I  horrify  you  because  I  am  a  crea- 
ture thwarted,  distorted ;  nothing  is  more 
ugly  or  repulsive  —  but  if  I  had  had  a 
chance ! " 

"What  would  a  chance  have  done  for 
you  ?  You  have  had  every  chance  to 
be  noble  and  loving  and  happy  —  yes, 
happy." 

"  But  not  in  my  own  way  !  —  not  in  my 
163 


THE   RESCUE 

own  way ! "  she  cried,  and  now  she 
clasped  both  hands  on  his  arm  and  leaned 
against  his  shoulder  as  she  looked  into  his 
face.  ' '  I  needed  power  and  wealth — all  the 
real  foundations  of  happiness  and  nobility. 
Then  —  ah,  then  I  should  have  blossomed. 
Or  else,  failing  them,  I  needed  liberty  and 
joy  —  the  life  of  a  bohemian.  I  have  had 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  and  if  I 
seem  almost  wicked  to  you  it  is  because  of 
that;  for,  to  me,  wickedness  means  going 
against  one's  nature.  I  have  always  been 
forced  to  go  against  mine;  I  have  never 
had  a  chance." 

Damier  gave  a  mirthless  laugh.  "  On 
the  contrary,  to  me  wickedness  means 
going  with  one's  nature." 

"  Ah,  there  we  differ ;  and  yet  we  under- 
stand." 

Again  he  had  that  feeling  of  perplexity 
and  irritation.  Her  eyes,  the  clasp  of  her 
hands  upon  his  arm,  irked  and  troubled 
him,  and  without,  now,  any  sense  of 
glamour  in  the  trouble  and  irritation. 
She  seemed  to  make  too  great  a  claim 
164 


THE   RESCUE 

upon  his  understanding,  and  to  rely  too 
much  upon  some  conviction  of  her  own 
charm  that  could  dare  any  frankness  just 
because  it  was  so  sure  of  triumph.  He 
felt  that  at  the  moment  he  did  not  under- 
stand her;  he  felt,  too,  that  he  did  not  want 
to  —  that  he  was  tired  of  understanding 
her. 

"You  are  an  unhappy  creature,  Claire," 
he  said.  They  were  nearing  the  Porte 
Dauphine,  and  while  he  spoke  with  a  full 
yet  distant  gravity,  Damier  looked  about 
for  a  fiacre.  "  An  unhappy  creature  with 
an  unawakened  soul." 

"  Will  you  try  to  wake  it,  the  poor 
thing  ? "  asked  Claire.  She  still  held  his 
arm,  though  he  had  tried  to  disengage  it, 
and  though  she  spoke  softly,  there  was  a 
vague  hardness  in  her  eyes,  as  though 
she  felt  the  new  hardness  in  him,  though 
as  yet  not  quite  interpreting  its  finality. 

"  I  should  n't  know  how  to :  I  am  help- 
less before  it.  It  should  be  made  to  suffer," 
he  said.  A  cab  had  answered  his  sum- 
mons, and  he  handed  her  into  it.  "  No, 

165 


THE    RESCUE 

I  cannot  go  home  with  you,"  he  said. 
"Are  you  going  home?  " 

"  I  am  going  to  lunch  with  old  Ma- 
demoiselle Daunay,  and  see  Monsieur 
Daunay  there.  I  had  no  chance  to 
speak  to  him  last  night."  Claire,  sitting 
straightly  in  the  open  cab,  had  an  ex- 
pression of  perplexity  and  of  growing 
resentment  on  her  face ;  but  as  he  merely 
bowed  and  was  about  to  turn  away,  she 
started  forward  and  put  her  hand  on 
his  shoulder. 

"Are  you  going  to  make  it  suffer?" 
she  asked.  He  looked  into  her  eyes.  He 
did  not  understand  her,  but  he  saw  in 
them  a  demand  at  once  alluring  and 
threatening.  His  one  instinct  was  to 
deny  strongly  whatever  she  demanded, 
though  he  did  not  know  what  that  was. 

"  I  have  no  mission  toward  your  soul, 
Claire,"  he  said.  For  another  moment  the 
eyes  that  threatened  and  allured  dwelt  on 
his;  then,  calling  out  the  address  to  the 
cabman,  she  was  driven  away. 


XIV 

iN  Damier's  return  to  his  hotel 
early  in  the  afternoon,  he  found 
a  note  from  Madame  Vicaud 
awaiting  him.  "  Monsieur  Daunay  has 
just  been  here,"  it  said,  "and  destiny  has 
strangely  brought  this  matter  to  a  crisis. 
His  wife  is  dead,  and  he  has  asked  me  for 
Claire's  hand,  feeling  that  his  false  posi- 
tion toward  me  demanded  an  immediate 
reparation.  He  hopes  and  believes  that 
she  loves  him ;  but  this,  as  both  you  and 
I  must  know,  is  impossible.  I  am  sad- 
dened and  confused  by  the  whole  situation. 
I  do  not  blame  them,  but  to  me  it  is  all 
displeasing,  even  shocking — this  haste  to 
profit  by  the  wife's  opportune  death  most 
of  all.  Will  you  come  and  see  me? 
Claire  is  lunching  at  his  cousin's,  and  he 
167 


THE   RESCUE 

will  find  her  there.  I  told  him  to  speak 
to  her  himself,  as  I  felt  that  to  act  the 
maternal  part  of  intermediary  between 
them  would  now  be  mere  formalism  and 
affectation ;  so  I  am  alone.  You  will  want 
to  speak  to  me,  I  know." 

Damier,  as  he  drove  to  the  Rue  B , 

speculated  on  the  rather  mystifying  sig- 
nificance of  the  last  sentence.  He  always 
wanted  to  speak  to  her:  that  she  must 
know ;  but  why  now  in  particular  ?  Since 
his  interview  with  Claire  that  morning  he 
had  felt  almost  too  shaken  by  pity  for  the 
mother  to  trust  himself  with  her.  He 
would  not  be  able  to  help  her  with  counsel 
and  consolation ;  he  would  not  be  able  to 
think  of  Claire  ;  and  at  this  turning-point 
in  Claire's  life  it  was  for  that  that  the 
mother  needed  him. 

He  found  her  standing  in  the  salon,  evi- 
dently pausing  to  meet  him,  in  a  restless 
pacing  to  and  fro.  Her  eyes  dwelt  on  him 
gently  and  very  gravely  while  she  took  his 
hand. 

"  Who  could  have  expected  this  swift 
1 68 


THE   RESCUE 

denouement  ?  But  it  is  best,"  she  said, 
"and  I  pitied  him  very  deeply." 

"  Pitied  him  —  for  the  past,  you  mean  ?  " 
Damier  questioned. 

"Oh,  for  the  future  more  ! " 

Damier  wondered  over  her  eyes,  over 
the  something  tremulous  in  her  smile. 

"I  saw  Claire  this  morning,"  he  said. 
"  We  talked  over  the  matter ;  she  wished 
to  see  me." 

Madame  Vicaud  showed  no  surprise  at 
this  piece  of  information.  "Ah,  yes;  I 
understand,"  she  said. 

"She  certainly  told  me  that  she  did  not 
love  him,"  Damier  went  on,  "and  yet — " 
He  paused,  not  quite  knowing  how  to 
put  to  her  his  hope  that  Claire  now  would 
reconsider  the  situation,  his  hope  that  she 
would  marry  Monsieur  Daunay. 

It  would  be  the  solution  of  all  difficul- 
ties, the  best  solution  possible,  and  the 
situation  could  then  be  defined  anew  in 
terms  that  he  more  and  more  deeply 
longed  for.  He  hardly  dared,  even  yet, 
before  her  unconsciousness,  define  it,  and 
169 


THE   RESCUE 

turning  away  from  her,  he  walked  down 
the  room,  urging  himself  to  a  courage 
great  enough  to  enable  him  now  to  speak 
to  her  what  was  in  his  heart.  Madame 
Vicaud  was  watching  him  thoughtfully 
when  he  faced  her  again  at  the  end  of  the 
room,  and  with  still  that  look  cf  controlled 
emotion. 

"  I,  also,  have  something  to  tell  you," 
he  said. 

"Yes,"  she  assented  quietly,  yet  with 
the  look  evidently  braced,  steeled,  in  prep- 
aration for  what  she  was  to  hear. 

"  Can  you  guess  ?  "  he  asked. 

She  was  standing  now,  strangely,  in  the 
attitude  of  the  little  photograph — leaning 
on  the  back  of  a  high  chair ;  and  her  eyes 
recalled  yet  more  strangely  the  intentness 
of  the  picture's  eyes  as  she  said :  "  You 
have  come  to  tell  me  that  you  love  my 
daughter?" 

He  was  so  deeply  astonished,  so  com- 
pletely thrown  back  upon  himself,  that  for 
a  long  moment  he  could  only  gaze  help- 
lessly into  the  eyes'  insolubility. 
170 


THE   RESCUE 

"  No,"  he  said  at  last ;  "  I  did  not  come 
to  tell  you  that." 

"But  you  do  love  her?"  Madame  Vi- 
caud  inquired,  with  something  of  gentle 
urgency  in  her  voice,  as  though  she  helped 
his  shyness.  "  Be  frank  with  me,  my 
friend ;  I  have  guessed  so  much  more, 
seen  so  much  more,  than  you  told  me  or 
showed  me.  Even  with  all  that  saddens 
you,  that  pains  you,  you  do  love  her  — 
enough  to  overlook  the  pain  and  sad- 
ness?" 

"  No,"  said  Damier,  still  facing  her  from 
his  distance,  "  I  do  not  love  her.  I  have 
never  needed  to  overlook  anything.' 

Plainly  it  was  her  turn  to  be  astonished, 
thrown  back  upon  herself. 

"  But,  from  the  beginning,  has  that  not 
been  your  meaning  ?  " 

"  You,  only,  have  been  my  meaning." 

He  saw  that  her  thought,  in  its  disarray, 
could  not  pause  upon  his  interpretation  of 
these  words.  She  had  straightened  her- 
self, both  hands  on  the  chair-back,  and 
her  wide  gaze,  her  parted  lips,  and  the 
171 


THE   RESCUE 

vivid  wonder  and  surmise  in  her  face  made 
her  look  curiously  young. 

"  You  have,  from  the  first,  been  so  much 
with  her  —  seemed  to  take  so  much  inter- 
est in  her  —  seemed  so  to  understand  her; 
she  was  so  open  —  so  intimate — " 

"  She  is  your  daughter." 

"  But  that,  I  thought,  added  to  the  cer- 
tainty: you  must,  I  thought,  love  my 
daughter  — " 

He  was  forced  to  beat  a  retreat  for 
a  moment  of  disentanglement ;  and,  sud- 
denly, disentanglement  seemed  to  demand 
a  cutting  sincerity. 

"I  don't,  in  the  very  least,  love  Claire; 
I  have  never,  in  the  very  least,  loved  her; 
I  have  only  been  sorry  for  her." 

"Sorry  for  her?  Because  of  her  dull, 
bleak  life  ?  Ah,  have  I  not  been  sorry, 
too?" 

"But  I  not  for  that,"  said  Damier,  "not 
for  that;  but  because  she  made  me  so 
sorry  for  you  ;  because  " —  and  he  looked 
at  her  —  "  because  you  do  not  love  her." 

He  was  still  at  a  distance  from  her,  and 
172 


THE   RESCUE 

across  it  her  look  met  his  in  a  long  si- 
lence. 

Then  a  strange,  a  tragic  thing  happened 
to  her.  He  had  before  seen  her  flush 
faintly ;  but  it  was  now  a  deep,  an  ago- 
nizing blush  that  slowly  rose  and  dark- 
ened in  her  face.  The  revelation  of  look 
and  blush  was  long  before  she  leaned  her 
elbows  on  the  chair-back  and  covered  her 
face  with  her  hands. 

"Forgive  me!"  Damier  murmured. 
He  felt  as  if  he  had  stabbed  her.  He 
came  to  her,  and,  half  kneeling  on  the 
chair  before  her,  he  longed,  but  did  not 
dare,  to  put  his  arms  around  her  and  sweep 
away  this  complication,  and  all  the  others 
—  ah,  the  others  ?  —  the  years  and  years 
of  them  that  rolled  between  them  !  —  in  a 
full  and  final  confession.  "  Forgive  me 
for  seeing  —  it  is  not  your  fault;  it  is 
my  clear-sightedness  —  " 

She  made  no  reply. 

"  You  try  to  understand  her,  but  she  is 
alien  to  you.  She  tears  at  every  fiber  of 
you.  There  is  nothing  in  her  that  does 

173 


THE   RESCUE 

not  hurt  you,"  Damier  said,  hastening  to 
speak  all  the  truth,  since  the  moment  in- 
evitably had  come  for  it. 

Madame  Vicaud  lifted  her  head. 

"  I  do  understand  her,"  she  said.  She 
did  not  look  at  him.  Straightening  her 
shoulders,  drawing  a  long  breath,  she 
walked  away  from  him  to  the  window; 
there,  her  back  to  him,  she  added,  the  truth 
seemingly  forced  from  her  as  it  had  been 
from  him,  "  And  I  hate  her." 

Damier  remained  leaning  against  the 
chair.  The  situation,  in  its  strangeness, 
dazed  him.  But  looking  at  her  figure, 
dark  against  the  light,  he  was  able  to  say : 
"  I  even  guessed  that  —  almost." 

"Yet  you  do  not  hate  her,"  she  said, 
after  a  pause  of  some  moments,  speaking 
without  moving  or  turning  her  head. 

Damier  paused  too.  "  I  have  not  your 
reasons,"  he  said  at  last. 

"  Ah,  my  reasons  !  Yes."  She  turned 
to  him  now,  as  though  she  saw  in  him  an 
accusing  world,  and  faced  it  in  an  attitude 
of  desperate  self-justification. 

174 


THE   RESCUE 

"  They  began  with  her  father,"  said 
Damier. 

"  I  hated  him,"  she  said.  Her  eyes 
looked  through  him,  fixed  on  the  abyss 
of  the  past.  "  I  hated  him.  He  was 
abhorrent  to  me.  I  lived  with  him  for 
fifteen  years  —  fifteen  long,  long  years. 
I  bore  his  brutality,  his  wickedness  —  I  am 
not  the  woman  to  use  the  word  prudishly 
—  I  can  make  allowances  —  wide  ones  — 
for  temperament,  environment,  all  the 
mitigating  causes :  but  my  husband's 
wickedness  was  unimaginably  vile ;  to  see 
it  stained  one's  thoughts."  The  memory 
of  it,  as  she  spoke,  had  chilled  her  to  a 
drawn  and  frozen  pallor ;  it  was  as  though 
the  blighting  breath  of  the  past  went 
across  her  face,  aging  it,  emptying  it  of 
life. 

"  I  bore  the  ruin  he  brought ;  that  was 
nothing  —  a  spur  to  love,  had  love  been 
possible.  I  bore  his  serene,  inflexible 
selfishness.  The  only  thing  I  would  not 
bear "  —  and  she  still  looked  full  at 
Damier,  but  with  the  same  unseeing  large- 

175 


THE   RESCUE 

ness  of  gaze  — "  was  his  love.  His  love  ! " 
She  turned  and  walked  across  the  room. 
Damier  felt  his  own  flesh  shudder  as  he 
looked  behind  the  curtain  her  words  lifted, 
felt  his  own  heart  freeze  in  the  aching 
sympathy  of  its  comprehension.  He  could 
not  speak  to  her.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
she  stood  at  a  great  distance  from  him 
and  would  not  hear  him.  Her  voice,  when 
she  spoke  again,  had  less  of  its  haunting 
terror,  but  it  still  thrilled  with  a  deep  and 
tragic  note :  "  All  this,  as  thousands  of 
women  have  done,  because  it  was  my 
duty  —  to  help  him  —  to  uphold  him  — 
to  stand  by  him  unflinchingly,  and  —  be- 
cause he  was  her  father.  You  said  that 
my  reasons  for  hating  her  began  with 
him.  Ah,  but  he  was  my  reason  for  lov- 
ing her  so  desperately  —  with  such  a 
longing  to  atone  to  her  for  him.  I  gave 
her  all  the  love  he  had  crushed  out  of  me. 
You  see  his  picture  there  ;  I  have  schooled 
myself,  so  that  she  may  not  feel  the  smirch 
of  him  through  my  horror,  to  bear  the 
sight  of  him,  to  say  to  myself  every  day, 
176 


THE   RESCUE 

'That  is  the  face  I  loved.'  Oh,  what 
madness !  —  what  madness  !  "  She  pressed 
her  hands  hard  upon  her  eyes.  "Some 
day,  perhaps, —  since  I  tell  you  every- 
thing,—  I  will  tell  you  that  story,  too  — 
my  love-story.  The  memory  of  it  is  like 
a  block  of  lead  upon  my  heart."  Her 
hands  fell,  but  the  memory  made  her 
silent,  and  for  a  long  moment  she  stood 
looking  down.  "  But  all  was  hidden  from 
her:  the  dread, —  that  soon  passed  —  I 
was  the  stronger,  he  came  to  feel  it,  dread 
fell  from  me, —  the  hate  that  followed  it, 
and  the  final,  the  terrible  pity, —  for  I 
came  to  pity  him  when  he  hung  about  my 
life,  helpless,  like  a  torn  and  dirty  rag, — 
all  that  was  hidden  from  her.  I  kept  her 
lifted  out  of  the  mud  he  dragged  us  down 
to  ;  she  never  saw  its  depths.  While  he 
lived,  and  while  he  was  dying,  —  and  hor- 
rible to  see  and  hear,  —  she  was  at  a 
school.  Those  days ! "  She  paused  and 
turned  away,  and  then  went  on :  "  It  was 
in  the  winter.  Lessons  fell  away ;  there 
was  the  school,  the  doctor,  all  the  expenses 
177 


THE    RESCUE 

of  an  illness  to  be  met.  I  went  into  the 
streets  of  nights,  a  man  carrying  my  harp, 
and  sang  for  money ;  I  had  a  voice  till 
then,  and  I  braved  more  than  the  snow 
and  the  night  to  do  it :  I  was  still  beauti- 
ful. This  that  you  may  see  how  I  loved 
her,  how  I  struggled  for  her,  how  like  any 
mother,  though  now  I  seem  so  hard  —  so 
hideously  unnatural.  Ah,  I  fought — I 
cannot  tell  you,  you  cannot  guess,  how 
I  fought  for  her.  And  then,  he  died,  and 
then  there  was  for  me  peace  and  the  blos- 
soming of  delicious  hope.  She  and  I 
together,  saved  from  the  wreck.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  I  had  battled  through 
waves,  past  rocks  and  whirlpools,  holding 
her  to  my  breast,  and  had  reached  the  shore 
at  last  —  she  alive  for  me,  and  I  for  her. 
And  then  —  ah,  then  !  The  shipwreck, 
the  years  of  struggle,  were  crude  tragedy 
to  my  gradual  realizing  of  the  subtle  dis- 
aster that  was  to  poison  my  life  for- 
ever. Year  by  year  I  saw  it  coming  —  I 
saw  him  creeping  into  her.  I  saw  the 
grave  purpose  settle  round  her  lips  —  the 
178 


THE   RESCUE 

steady  greed  for  self.  I  saw  his  smile 
in  her  eyes ;  his  eyes  were  beautiful  like 
hers :  when  I  first  looked  at  them,  I 
thought  them  full  of  splendid  dreams, 
noble  strength.  She  was  not  cruel,  or 
brutal,  or  vicious,  as  he  had  been.  She 
submitted  placidly ;  she  submitted,  and  I 
hoped  for  happiness.  I  could  not  make 
her  happy  or  unhappy.  I  meant  no- 
thing to  her  except  the  thing  that  fed 
and  clothed  her.  She  took  what  I  could 
give,  and  waited  for  what  I  could  not  give. 
She  lied  only  when  the  truth  would  not 
serve  her  purpose  better;  so,  often,  she 
was  frank  with  me.  Her  grave  laugh 
maddened  me,  and  her  indifferent  adapt- 
ing of  herself  to  me  —  for  expediency,  not 
for  love.  If  only  she  had  become  a  gentle 
and  beautiful  animal,  to  guard  from  its 
own  instincts!  but  she  is  an  animal  of  such 
hideous  intelligence;  she  knows  when  I 
try  to  guard  her,  and  evades  me.  Like 
him,  she  is  corrupt  to  the  core  of  her ;  not 
—  do  not  misunderstand  me  —  that  she 
would  do  wrong  in  a  conventional  sense 
179 


THE   RESCUE 

—  and  that  it  is  conventional  wrong-doing 
that  I  dread  she  has  always  pretended  to 
read  into  my  horror  of  evil,  making  a 
plaster  saint  of  me  so  that  she  may  more 
easily  evade  the  deeply  understanding 
woman  of  flesh  and  blood.  Hers  is  the 
worse  corruption,  that  calculates  chances, 
chooses  and  manages.  It  is  there  in  her, 
I  know,  though,  in  its  worst  forms,  latent 
still— I  think." 

Damier,  white  already,  felt  himself 
blanch  before  the  rapid  glance,  like  a 
sword-stroke  across  his  face,  that  she 
cast  upon  him.  She  guessed  at  all  his 
knowledge. 

Again  she  turned  away  and  walked  up 
and  down  the  room. 

"Hideous,  hideous  that  I  should  speak  so 
to  you,  and  to  you  I  hoped,  yet  dreaded  — 
You  will  wonder  how  I  could  have  hoped 
it;  how,  knowing  this,  I  should  not 
have  warned  you.  But  at  first  I  did  not 
think  it  possible,  though  I  knew  her 
charm ;  at  first  I  did  not  understand  you, 
and,  not  understanding,  I  guarded  you. 
1 80 


THE    RESCUE 

And  then  I  saw  your  generous,  your  piti- 
ful heart,  and  I  saw  that  it  understood 
Claire,  that  perhaps  you  understood  her 
better  than  I  did.  With  you  she  was  her 
best  self;  she  trusted  you,  it  seemed, 
so  utterly.  I  hoped  that  yours  was  the 
clearer  vision,  that  I  was  warped,  no 
longer  capable  of  true  seeing.  Yet,  when 
the  friendship  that  I  rejoiced  in  grew,  as 
I  thought,  into  love,  there  was  a  terrible 
struggle  in  me.  My  strong  attachment 
to  you  —  you  who  had  opened  the  prison 
gates  that  shut  me  into  my  misery,  who 
brought  me  out  of  a  loneliness  so  long, 
so  bitter  —  ah!  my  friend,  do  not  think 
that  I  have  not  seen  and  felt  it  all ;  but  I 
could  not  speak  to  you  as  I  might  have 
spoken  had  it  not  been  for  that  struggle 
in  me  between  the  justice  owed  to  you  — 
yet  that  you  did  not  seem  to  need  —  and 
the  duty  to  her  —  not  to  withhold,  for  your 
sake,  a  possibility  that  might  redeem  her. 
My  mind  was  fixed  in  that  struggle ;  of 
our  friendship,  yours  and  mine,  I  could 
not  think  clearly.  If  you  had  been  igno- 
181 


THE   RESCUE 

rant,  if  she  had  hidden  herself  from  you,  I 
should  have  sacrificed  her  unflinchingly  to 
you ;  I  should  have  interposed  and  shown 
her  to  you.  But  she  showed  herself  to 
you.  I  knew,  from  my  knowledge  of  you, 
that  she  would  not  attract  you  as  she  at- 
tracts most  men,  not  nobly.  I  saw  from 
her  looks  with  you,  her  words,  that  she 
would  make  no  efforts  so  to  attract  you. 
I  must  say  all  to  you,  since  you  must 
understand  all.  Claire  does  not  love  you, 
but  you  attract  what  is  best  in  her.  She 
relies,  I  have  guessed  it,  upon  the  very 
pathos  of  her  moral  ugliness  to  enchant 
you,  to  arouse  in  you  the  chivalrous,  re- 
demptive qualities  she  sees  in  you.  And 
I  grew  to  hope  that  you  saw  something 
that  I  could  not  see.  I  even  began  to 
feel  a  blind,  groping  tenderness  for  her 
through  your  fancied  tenderness ;  and  as 
I  allowed  myself  to  hope  that  you  loved 
her,  I  allowed  myself  to  have  faith  in  the 
redeeming  power  of  your  love." 

She  stood  before  him  now,  looking  at 
him  with  saddest  eyes;  and  Damier,  an- 
swering them,  shook  his  head. 
182 


THE   RESCUE 

"Alas,  no.  It  would  have  been  my 
story  over  again,  the  positions  reversed, 
and  you  without  my  illusions,  had  you 
loved  her,  married  her ;  and  yet,  it  was 
because  you  had  no  illusions  that  I 
hoped." 

But  Damier  could  not  think  of  dead 
hopes. 

"  What  you  have  suffered  !  "  he  said. 

"  Yes,"  Madame  Vicaud  answered,  "  I 
have  suffered;  but  do  not,  in  your  kind- 
ness, your  tenderness,  exaggerate.  I 
have  suffered,  but  all  has  not  been  black. 
There  have  been  flowers  on  the  uphill 
road.  I  don't  believe  in  a  woe  that  is 
blind  to  them,  or  to  the  sky  overhead." 

But  she  still  stood  looking  at  dead 
hopes,  not  thinking  of  him. 

"  Clara,"  said  Damier. 

She  was  a  woman  of  deep  understand- 
ing, yet  even  now, —  and  hardly  was  it  to 
be  wondered  at,  so  lifted  through  its  very 
intensity  was  his  love  for  her  above  love's 
ordinary  manifestations, —  even  now  her 
name  so  gravely  spoken  by  him  had  no 
further  meaning  for  her  than  the  one 

183 


THE   RESCUE 

openly,  proudly,  joyously  accepted,  the 
meaning  of  the  strange  tie  that  had  united 
them ;  but,  while  she  accepted  it,  his  look 
startled  her.  It  showed  nothing  new,  but 
seemed  to  interpret  newly  something 
she  had  not  recognized  before.  Smiling 
faintly,  she  said : 

"  You  have  a  right." 

"  Not  the  right  I  would  have."  He  felt 
no  excitement,  only  the  enraptured  solem- 
nity that  a  soul  might  feel  in  some  quiet 
dawn  of  heaven  on  finding  another  soul 
parted  from  years  ago  on  earth  —  long 
sought  for,  long  loved. 

She  said  nothing,  her  dark  eyes  fixing 
him  with  a  wonder  that  was  already  a 
recognition. 

"  I  love  you,"  said  Damier.  He  had 
not  moved  toward  her,  nor  had  she  moved 
away.  A  little  distance  separated  them,  and 
they  stood  silently  looking  at  each  other. 

"You  mean  —  "  she  said  at  last. 

"  I  mean  in  every  way  in  which  it  is  pos- 
sible for  a  man  to  love  the  woman  he  wor- 
ships." 

184 


THE   RESCUE 

The  whirl  of  her  mind  mirrored  itself 
in  the  stricken  stupefaction  of  her  wan, 
beautiful  features.  She  caught  at  one 
flashing  thought.  "  And  I  —  her  mother ! 
You  might  have  been  my  son  !  " 

"  No ;  I  might  not,"  Damier  affirmed. 

"  By  age ;   I  am  old  enough." 

"I  know  your  age;  you  are  forty- 
seven,"  said  Damier,  able  to  smile  at  her, 
"and  I  am  thirty.  If  you  were  seventy- 
seven,  the  only  difference  would  be  that  I 
could  have  fewer  years  to  spend  with  you ; 
I  should  wish  to  spend  them  just  the  same. 
As  it  is,  your  age  does  not  make  us  lu- 
dicrous before  the  world,  if  we  were  to 
consider  that." 

At  this  she  turned  from  him  as  if  in 
impatience  at  this  quibbling,  and  her  own 
endurance  of  it,  at  such  a  moment. 

"  My  friend !  That  this  should  have 
happened  to  you  !  " 

"  Can  it  never  happen  to  you  ? "  he 
asked. 

"  I  would  never  allow  it  to  happen  to 
me." 

185 


THE   RESCUE 

"  It  would  not  be  to  look  up  at  the  sky 
—  it  would  not  even  be  to  stoop  to  a 
flower?" 

"  I  would  not  allow  myself  to  look,  or 
to  stoop,  knowing  that  after  I  had  looked 
and  gathered,  the  flower  would  wither, 
the  sky  be  black." 

He  saw,  as  she  gazed  steadily  round  at 
him,  that  the  gaze  was  through  tears. 
Clasping  his  hands  with  a  supplication 
that  was,  indeed,  more  the  worshiper's 
than  the  lover's,  Eustace  said : 

"  But  would  you  — would  you  stoop?  " 

"I  cannot  answer  that;  I  cannot  think 
the  answer.  Your  friendship  has  led  me 
away  from  the  rocky  wastes  into  the 
sweetest,  the  serenest  meadows."  Though 
she  spoke  with  complete  self-mastery,  the 
tears  ran  down  as  she  said  these  words, 
and  she  turned  her  face  away.  "  I  should 
be  culpable  indeed  if  I  allowed  you  to 
lead  me  aside  into  a  fool's  paradise,  with 
a  precipice  waiting  for  you  in  the  middle 
of  it.  I  shall  be  an  old  woman  while  you 
are  still  a  young  man." 
1 86 


THE   RESCUE 

"Beloved  woman,  can  you  not  believe 
that,  young  or  old,  you  are  the  same  to 
me  ?  I  have  not  fallen  in  love  with  you 
—  I  have  found  you.  When  I  saw  your 
face  in  the  old  picture  I  knew  that  it  was 
mine." 

"The  face  of  a  girl.  I  was  nineteen 
then." 

"  Do  not  juggle  with  the  truth.  Your 
face  now  is  dearer  to  me  than  the  girl's 
face.  Your  heart,  I  believe,  is  nearer 
mine  than  you  know.  That  struggle  in 
you  when  you  imagined  that  I  loved 
Claire,  was  it  not,  in  part,  the  struggle  of 
a  sacrifice  ?  Did  you  not  submit  because 
you  thought  that  the  side  of  self-sacrifice 
must  be  the  right  side  ?  " 

Still  her  face  was  turned  from  him,  and 
after  a  silence  she  said,  "  Perhaps." 

"And  if  this  were  our  last  moment  —  if 
there  were  no  question  of  age  or  of  going 
on  —  then  —  then  would  you  tell  me  that 
you  have  felt  something  of  my  feeling  — 
the  finding — the  recognition  —  the  rap- 
ture —  own  to  it  with  joy  ?  " 
187  ' 


THE   RESCUE 

She  turned  to  him  now  and  looked  at 
him,  at  his  eager,  solemn  face,  the  suppli- 
cation and  worship  of  his  clasped  hands, 
looked  for  a  long  time,  without  speaking. 
But  her  face,  though  she  was  so  white  and 
so  grave,  seemed,  as  she  looked,  to  reflect, 
with  a  growing  radiance,  the  youth  in  his. 

"  I  have  felt  it,"  she  said  at  last,  "  but  I 
have  hardly  known  that  I  felt  it." 

"  You  know  now  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  know  now." 

"  You  could  own  to  it  —  with  joy  ?  " 

"If  this  were  our  last  moment. —  Ah, 
my  friend  !  "  He  had  taken  her  into  his 
arms. 

The  long  years  drifted  away  like  illu- 
sions before  an  awakening.  Her  girl- 
hood—  but  weighted  with  such  dreams 
of  sorrow  and  loneliness!  —  seemed  with 
her  again.  She  was  helpless,  though  her 
heart  reproached  him  and  herself,  yet 
could  not  wholly  reproach  —  helpless  in  a 
happiness  poignant  and  exquisite.  They 
kissed  each  other  gently,  and,  his  arms 
around  her,  they  looked  earnestly  at  each 
1 88 


THE   RESCUE 

other.     Speechlessly  they  looked  the  find- 
ing, the  recognition,  the  rapture. 

The  meeting  in  heaven  had  come ; 
but  there  was  still  the  earth  to  be  counted 
with. 


189 


XV 

»S  they  heard  the  tinkle  of  the 
entrance-bell,  Claire's  voice,  her 
step  outside,  Madame  Vicaud 
moved  away  from  Damier.  She  was 
seated  in  a  chair  near  the  table,  and  the 
young  man  stood  beside  her,  when  Claire 
entered. 

Claire  paused  in  the  doorway  and 
looked  sullenly,  yet  hardly  suspiciously, 
at  them.  She  had  never  worn  a  mask  for 
Damier,  yet  he  saw  in  her  flushed  and 
somber  face  something  new  to  him,  saw 
that  she  lacked  some  quality  —  was  it  con- 
fidence, indifference,  placidity? — that  he 
had  always  found  in  her.  He  guessed 
in  a  moment  that  her  interview  with 
Monsieur  Daunay  had  not  been  a  pro- 
pitious one. 

190 


THE    RESCUE 

"  I  did  not  expect  to  see  you  so  soon 
again,  and  under  such  suddenly  changed 
circumstances,"  she  said  to  him.  "What 
are  you  talking  about  ?  Me  ?  "  She  took 
off  her  hat, —  the  day  was  sultry, —  pushed 
up  her  thick  hair,  and  dropped  her  length 
of  ruffled,  clinging  white  into  a  chair. 
"So;  I  have  seen  Monsieur  Daunay. 
He  lost  no  time,  it  seems.  He  asked  my 
hand  of  you  first,  I  hear,  Mamma,  in 
proper  form  —  tres  convenablement" 

"Yes,"  Madame  Vicaud  assented  with 
composure. 

"  It  seems  that  you  discouraged  him." 

"  I  could  not  encourage  him  from  what 
you  had  told  me,  but  from  what  he  told  me 
it  seems  that  you  did  not  discourage  him," 
the  mother  answered. 

"  I  have  never  been  in  a  position  to 
discourage  any  useful  possibility,"  said 
Claire. 

Madame  Vicaud,  in  silence,  and  with 
something  of  a  lion-tamer's  calm  intent- 
ness  of  eye,  looked  at  her  daughter; 
and  Claire,  after  meeting  the  look  with 
191 


THE   RESCUE 

one  frankly  hostile,  turned  her  eyes  on 
Damier. 

"And  it  seems  that  you,  last  night,  did 
not  discourage  Monsieur  Daunay's  hopes ; 
he  spoke  of  you  with  gratitude.  What 
have  you  to  say  to  it  all  now  ?  " 

"I  have  nothing  to  say  to  it;  it  has 
always  been  your  affair  —  yours  and  his." 

"  You  made  it  yours,  it  seems  to  me  !  " 

"  Unwillingly." 

"  Oh  —  unwillingly  !  "  Claire  laughed 
her  ugliest  laugh.  "  I  don't  understand 
you,  Mr.  Damier  —  I  began  not  to  un- 
derstand you  this  morning " ;  and,  as  he 
made  no  reply : 

"  Your  present  silence  does  n't  accord 
with  your  past  interference." 

"  My  silence  ?  What  do  you  expect 
me  to  say  ? "  Damier  asked,  with  real 
wonder,  forgetting  the  mother's  intima- 
tions. 

"  Can  you  deny  that  —  apart  from  your 
feelings  of  angered  propriety  —  you  were 
pitifully  jealous  last  night  and  this  morn- 
ing ?  I  had  to  assure  you  again  and  again 
192 


THE   RESCUE 

that  I  did  not  love  him  —  the  truth,  as  it 
happens." 

This  speech  now  opened  such  vistas  of 
interpretation  to  the  past  —  of  interroga- 
tion to  the  future  —  that  Damier  could 
only,  speechlessly,  look  his  wonder  at 
her. 

"Were  you  not  jealous?"  she  de- 
manded. 

"  Not  in  the  faintest  degree." 

Her  flush  deepened  at  this,  an  angry, 
not  an  embarrassed,  flush. 

"  And  what,  then,  was  your  motive  for 
prying,  meddling,  cross-questioning  as 
you  did  ?  You  had  a  motive  ?  " 

"  I  have  always  had  an  interest  in  your 
welfare,  Claire,  but  your  mother  was  my 
motive  for  meddling  and  cross-question- 
ing, as  you  put  it." 

"Oh — my  mother!"  Claire  tossed 
her  a  look  where  she  sat,  her  arms  folded, 
near  the  table.  "You  were  afraid  for 
my  honor  since  hers  was  involved  in  it? 
Was  that  it?" 

"Perhaps  that  was  it  —  and  for  the 
193 


THE   RESCUE 

same    reason    I    beg    you    to   spare  your 
mother  now." 

Claire  leaned  back  in  her  chair  and  fixed 
upon  him  a  heavy  stare  above  her  heavy 
flush.  "  Come,"  she  said,  "  I  have  never 
had  pretenses  with  you  —  I  have  always 
been  frank.  Do  you  intend  to  marry  me  ? 
There  it  is  clearly ;  I  have  no  false  deli- 
cacy, and,  bon  Dieu!  you  have  given  me 
every  right  to  ask  the  question." 

Madame  Vicaud,  soundless  at  the  table, 
now  leaned  her  elbows  upon  it  and  cov- 
ered her  face  with  her  hands.  "  Come," 
Claire  repeated,  casting  another  look 
upon  her ;  "  for  Mamma's  sake,  you  owe 
me  an  answer.  Spare  her  the  shame — 
she  feels  it  bitterly,  you  observe  —  of  see- 
ing my  outrageous  uncertainty  prolonged. 
Have  n't  you  spent  all  your  time  with  me  ? 
Have  n't  you  taken  upon  yourself  a  posi- 
tion of  authority  toward  me  —  made  my 
affairs  your  own  ?  Are  n't  you  going  to 
—  how  would  Mamma  put  it?  —  redeem 
me  —  lift  me?  Or  are  you  going  to  let 
my  soul  suffer  a  little  longer  ?  " 
194 


THE    RESCUE 

"You  could  hardly  speak  so,  Claire,  if 
you  spoke  sincerely,"  said  Damier;  "you 
may  once  have  misinterpreted  my  friend- 
ship for  you,  but  you  no  longer  misin- 
terpret it.  I  have  never  intended  to 
marry  you.  It  is  you,  remember,  who 
force  me  into  this  ugly  attitude.  I  could 
not  face  you  in  it,  were  I  not  sure  that  your 
feeling  for  me  has  always  been  as  free  from 
anything  amorous  as  mine  for  you." 

"  I  don't  speak  of  my  feeling  for  you  ! " 
Claire  cried  in  a  voice  suddenly  loud, 
leaning  forward  with  her  elbows  on  the 
arms  of  her  chair,  "but  of  yours  for  me! 
It  is  not  there  now — I  see  it  plainly,  and 
I  see  plainly  why  !  She  —  she  —  has  been 
talking  to  you  against  me  !  —  telling  you 
about  some  childish  follies  in  my  life !  — 
making  you  believe  that  I  would  not  be  a 
fit  wife  for  you  !  Ah,  yes !  —  I  know  her ! " 
Claire  pointed  a  shaking  finger  at  her 
mother.  "  She  would  think  it  her  duty  to 
protect  you  against  me  —  I  know  her ! " 

"  Be  still,"  said  Damier  in  his  voice  of 
steel. 

195 


THE   RESCUE 

Claire,  for  a  moment,  sank  back,  pant- 
ing, defiant,  but  silent  before  it. 

"You  are  conscious  of  your  own  false- 
hood, but  you  can  scarcely  be  conscious 
of  how  base  and  vile  you  are.  Your 
mother,  when  I  came  to-day,  was  hoping 
that  I  had  come  to  ask  her  for  your  hand ; 
she  believed  that  I  loved  you,  and  hoped 
it." 

Claire,  in  her  sullen  recoil,  still  remained 
sunken  and  panting  in  her  chair. 

"Well,  then  !  And  what  have  you  got 
to  say  to  us  both,  then,  if  you  gave  us  both 
cause  for  such  a  supposition  ?  What  have 
you  meant  by  it  all  ?  " 

"What  I  meant  from  the  beginning  I 
can  best  define  by  telling  you  that  -to-day 
I  asked  your  mother  to  marry  me." 

Claire  sat  speechless  and  motionless. 
The  words  seemed  to  have  arrested 
thought,  and  to  have  nailed  her  to  her 
chair.  Damier  looked  at  Madame  Vi- 
caud.  Her  hands  had  dropped  from  her 
face,  and  she  met  his  eyes. 

"The  truth  was  allowed  me  ? "  he  said. 

196 


THE   RESCUE 

"  It  is  always  allowed,"  she  answered. 

Her  face  was  so  stricken,  so  ghastly, 
that  Damier,  almost  forgetting  in  his  great 
solicitude  the  hateful  presence  in  the 
room,  leaned  over  her,  taking  her  hand. 

"  Bear  it.     It  is  better  to  have  it  all 
over.     And,  in  a  sense,  it  is  my  own  fault. 
I   should  have  spoken    to  you  sooner  — 
defined  what  I  meant  from  the  first." 

"  So,"  Claire  said  suddenly.  Her 
smoldering  eyes,  while  they  spoke,  had 
gone  from  one  to  the  other.  "  So ;  this 
is  what  it  all  meant !  Indeed,  I  cannot 
blame  myself  for  not  having  guessed  it. 
You  in  love  with  my  mother !  Or,  shall 
we  not  more  truthfully  say,  she  in  love 
with  you  ?  —  the  explanation,  as  a  rule, 
you  know,  of  these  odd  amorous  episodes. 
I  begin  to  understand.  I  did  not  suspect 
a  rival  in  my  own  mother.  Clever 
Mamma !  " 

"  Let  this  cease  now,"  said  Madame 
Vicaud,  in  a  lifeless  voice.  "  All  has  been 
said  that  it  is  necessary  to  say." 

"  Indeed,     no ! "    cried     Claire.      She 
197 


THE   RESCUE 

sprang  to  her  feet,  braving  Damier's  men- 
acing look,  and  stood  before  them  with 
folded  arms,  defiantly,  "All  has  not  been 
said !  I  am  to  marry  the  middle-aged, 
middle-class  man  of  small  fortune,  and  you 
are  to  marry  the  prince  charmant!  Ah, 
don't  think  that  I  am  in  love  with  you, 
prince  charmant,  though  I  might  have 
loved  you  had  not  my  mother  had  such  a 
keen  eye  for  her  own  interests,  and  kept 
mine  so  dexterously  in  the  background. 
I  might  have  loved  you  had  you  been 
allowed  to  fall  in  love  with  me.  Oh,  I 
know  what  you  would  say  !  "  Her  voice 
rose  to  a  shout  as  she  interrupted  his 
effort  to  speak.  "  How  base,  how  vile, 
and  how  vulgar  —  riesl-ce  pas?  A  girl 
clamoring  over  the  loss  of  a  husband ! 
Shocking !  Well,  I  own  to  my  vulgarity. 
I  did  want  to  marry  you.  You  have 
money,  position  —  all  the  things  I  never 
hid  from  you  that  I  liked ;  and  you  inter- 
ested me,  and  I  liked  you,  and  I  could  be 
myself  with  you.  My  mother  has  always 
been  too  dainty  to  secure  a  husband  for 
198 


THE   RESCUE 

me  —  arrange  my  future :  I  have  had  to 
do  all  the  ugly  work  myself;  and  I  liked 
you  because — just  because  I  had  to  do  no 
ugly  work  with  you.  And  I  clamor  now 

—  not  because  I  have  lost  you  —  no,  it 's 
not  that;  but  because  she  —  she  has  made 
her  goodness  serve  her  so  !  —  has  made  it 
pay  where  my  frankness  failed.     She  is 
good,  if  you  will ;    but  I  tell  you  that  I 
prefer  my  vulgarity  —  my  baseness  —  my 
vileness  to  her  clever  virtue ;  or  is  it  an 
unconquerable  passion  with  you,  Mamma? 

—  is  it  to  be  a  mariage  cT  amour  rather 
than  a  mariage  de  convenance  f  " 

While  Claire  spoke,  her  mother,  as  if 
mesmerized  by  her  fury,  sat  looking  at  her 
with  dilated  eyes  and  a  fixed  face  —  a  face 
too  fixed  to  show  anguish.  Rather  it  was 
as  if,  with  an  intense,  spellbound  interest, 
she  hung  upon  her  daughter's  words, 
hardly  feeling,  hardly  flinching  before  her 
insults,  hardly  conscious  of  each  whip-like 
lash  that  struck  her  face  to  a  more  death- 
like whiteness.  Now,  drawing  a  breath 
that  was  almost  a  gasp,  she  leaned  for- 
199 


THE   RESCUE 

ward  over  the  table,  stretching  her  arms 
upon  it  and  clasping  her  hands.  "  Claire, 
Claire  ! "  she  said,  with  a  hurried,  staccato 
utterance,  "I  see  it  all  with  your  eyes  — 
I  understand.  You  have  had  something 
really  dear  taken  from  you  —  not  love, 
perhaps,  but  a  true  friendship  ;  that  is  so, 
is  n't  it  ?  He  seems  to  have  turned  against 
you, —  is  n't  it  so?  —  and  through  me. 
There  is  in  you  an  anger  that  seems 
righteous  to  you.  How  cruel  to  have  our 
best  turned  against  us!  I  see  all  that. 
Ah,  no,  no !  Let  me  speak  to  her !  "  For, 
Claire  keeping  the  hardened  insolence  of 
her  stare  upon  her,  Damier,  full  of  a  pas- 
sionate, protecting  resentment,  put  his  arm 
around  her  shoulders,  took  her  hand. 
She  threw  off  the  hand,  the  arm,  almost 
cruelly.  "  Let  me  speak  to  my  child ! 
Don't  come  between  us  now  —  now  when 
we  may  come  together,  she  and  I.  Yes, 
Claire,  he  loves  me, —  you  see  it, —  too 
much,  perhaps,  to  be  just  to  you,  though 
he  has  been  so  just  —  more  just  than  I 
have  been,  perhaps ;  he  has  been  so  truly 
200 


THE    RESCUE 

your  friend.  But  now  I  am  just.  I  am 
your  mother.  I  can  understand.  I  love 
him,  Claire,  yes,  I  love  him ;  but  I  under- 
stand you.  I  will  never  do  anything  to 
part  us  further  —  understand  me  !  I  will 
never  marry  him  against  your  will.  Oh, 
Claire,  try  to  understand  me  —  try  to  trust 
me  —  try  to  love  me  !  "  She  rose  to  her 
feet,  her  face  ardent  with  the  upsurging 
of  all  her  longing  motherhood,  its  sudden 
flaming  into  desperate  hope  through  the 
deep  driftings  of  ashen  hopelessness ;  and 
as  if  swayed  forward  by  this  flame  of  hope, 
this  longing  of  love,  this  ardor,  she  leaned 
toward  her  child,  stretched  out  her  arms 
toward  her  face  of  heavy  impassivity.  At 
the  gesture,  at  her  mother's  last  words, 
Claire's  impassivity  flickered  into  a  half- 
ironic,  half-pitying  smile.  But  she  did 
not  advance  to  the  outstretched  arms. 
Merely  looking  at  her  with  this  searing 
pity,  she  said : 

"  You  would  marry  him  to  me  if  you 
could,  would    n't    you  ?  —  you   would,   as 
usual,  sacrifice  yourself  to  me ;  as  usual, 
201 


THE   RESCUE 

your  radiance  would  shine  against  my 
dark.  Poor,  magnanimous  Mamma !  No, 
no,  no !  "  She  turned  and  walked  up  and 
down  the  room.  "  No,  no !  I  am  tired 
of  all  this  —  tired  of  you ;  and  you  are 
tired  of  me.  You  will  marry  Mr.  Damier. 
Why  not,  after  all  ?  Don't  let  scruples  of 
conscience  interfere,  especially  none  on 
my  account.  It  would  not  separate  us: 
we  are  separated;  we  have  always  been 
separated,  and  that  we  are  gives  me  no 
pain.  But  don't  expect  me  either  to  live 
with  you  when  you  are  married,  or  to 
marry  my  antique  lover  and  settle  down 
to  the  respectable,  tepid  joys  he  offers  me. 
No,  and  no  again.  I  will  not  marry  him. 
I  leave  the  respectability  to  you  two  excel- 
lent people."  The  glance  she  shot  at 
them  now  as  they  stood  together  was  pure 
irony.  Her  mother's  pale  and  beautiful 
face  still  kept  its  look  of  frozen  appeal,  as 
though,  while  she  made  the  appeal,  she 
had  been  shot  through  the  heart.  Its 
beauty  seemed  to  sting  Claire  where  the 
appeal  did  not  touch,  and,  too,  Damier's 
look,  bent  on  her  with  a  quiet  that  defied 
202 


THE   RESCUE 

her  and  all  she  signified,  stung  her,  per- 
haps, more  deeply. 

"  My  poor  chances  can't  compete  with 
yours,  Mamma,"  she  muttered.  "  Let  me 
tell  you  that  despair  becomes  you."  She 
took  up  her  hat. 

"Where  are  you  going,  Claire?" 
Madame  Vicaud  asked  in  her  dead 
voice. 

"  Don't  be  alarmed.  Not  to  the  Seine. 
I  am  going  to  a  tea  with  Mrs.  Walling- 
ham.  I  shall  be  back  to  dinner.  You 
will  admit  me  ?  " 

"  I  shall  always  admit  you." 

"  Good."  Claire  was  putting  in  her 
hat-pins  before  the  mirror.  "That  is  re- 
assuring. Console  her,  Mr.  Damier.  Try 
to  atone  to  her  for  me  —  bad  as  I  am,  I 
am  sure  that  you  can  do  so.  Ah,  I  don't 
harmonize  with  a  love-scene  !  —  it  was  one 
I  interrupted,  I  suppose.  Let  me  take 
my  baseness  —  my  vileness  —  from  before 
you."  Her  hand  on  the  door,  she  paused, 
fixing  a  last  look  upon  them  ;  then,  with  a 
short  laugh,  she  said,  "  Accept  my  bless- 
ing," and  was  gone. 

203 


XVI 

'ADAME  VICAUD  said  no- 
thing. She  drew  her  hand  from 
Damier's  and  sank  again  into  the 
chair  from  which  she  had  risen.  Hope, 
ardor,  and  love,  forever  perhaps,  were  dead 
within  her.  She  had  hated  her  daughter, 
but  under  the  hatred  had  been,  always, 
the  hidden  flame,  not,  perhaps,  of  love, 
but  of  longing  to  love.  She  hated  no 
longer,  and  the  flame  was  quenched. 
Even  in  his  nearness  to  her,  Damier  could 
not  look  with  her  at  that  slain  longing. 
Walking  away  from  her,  he  stood  for  a 
long  time,  gazing  unseeingly  over  the 
garden,  in  silence.  At  last  he  turned  and 
came  to  her.  Her  arm  leaned  on  the  table 
and  her  head  upon  her  hand.  With  un- 
utterable weariness  she  looked  up  at  him. 
204 


THE   RESCUE 

"And  now,"  she  said,  "you  must  go, 
my  friend." 

"  Go  ?  "  Damier  repeated. 

Years  of  resolute  endurance  looked 
from  her  eyes;  the  weariness  was  not  a 
wavering.  Her  face  seemed  sinking  back 
into  the  abyss  from  which  he  had  rescued 
it. 

"  Yes,  you  must  go." 

"  And  leave  you  with  her !  " 

"  And  leave  me  with  her,"  she  assented 
monotonously. 

"  Never  —  never !  " 

She  passed  her  hand  over  her  brow, 
pressing  her  eyelids,  as  if  in  the  effort  to 
dispel  her  deep  fatigue  and  find  words  with 
which  to  answer  his  harassing  protest. 

"  Yet  you  must.  I  have  the  wonder, 
the  treasure  of  your  love  for  me.  I  will 
keep  it  always.  I  will  never  forget  you. 
But  it  is  impossible,  even  the  friendship, 
now.  We  must  not  drag  what  is  dear  to 
us  in  the  mire.  I  could  not  keep  you  as 
my  friend  under  her  eyes.  I  must  live 
with  her,  and  for  her ;  that  is  the  only  life 
205 


THE   RESCUE 

possible  for  me.  I  made  it  for  myself. 
Whatever  her  cruelty,  whatever  her  base- 
ness, I  have  only  to  remember  that  I  am 
responsible  for  her,  that  I  am  her  only 
chance.  And  after  this  her  presence  in 
my  life  makes  yours  wrong.  She  knows 
now  that  you  are  not  a  friend  only,  and 
as  a  husband  you  could  not  remain.  Such 
a  menage  a  trois  would  be  as  detestable 
as  it  would  be  grotesque." 

"  She  will  marry ! "  cried  Damier. 
"  She  must  marry  Monsieur  Daunay." 

"  I  do  not  think  that  she  will  marry 
him ;  but  if  she  does  marry,  I  could  not 
separate  my  life  from  hers,  though  then  I 
could  see  you  again,  but  as  friend,  as 
friend  only." 

Damier  burst  out  into  a  smothered 
invective  : 

"  And  you  think  of  sacrificing  the  rest  of 
your  life  to  that  creature  —  who  has  no 
love  for  you  —  whom  you  cannot  love ! 
What  can  you  do  for  her  ?  You  can  never 
change  or  soften  her." 

He  felt  that  the  vehemence  of  his 
206 


THE   RESCUE 

despair  and  rebellion  dashed  itself  against 
a  rocky  inflexibility,  although  she  still  bent 
her  head  upon  her  hand  with  the  same 
deep  weariness,  not  looking  at  him,  still 
spoke  on  with  the  same  monotonous  pa- 
tience : 

"  I  cannot  call  the  fulfilling  of  the  most 
rudimentary  maternal  duty  a  sacrifice. 
You  forget  that  my  youth  is  past,  and  that 
with  it  the  time  for  sacrifices  is  past,  too. 
I  have  no  claims  on  life.  Life,  at  my  age 
and  in  my  position,  can  only  be  a  dedi- 
cation. I  can,  perhaps,  never  soften  or 
change  her:  but  I  can  still  protect  her;  I 
can  still  lend  her  the  dignity,  such  as  it  is, 
of  my  home  and  my  companionship.  And 
I  can  pity  her,  most  piteous  creature  — 
whose  mother  has  no  love  for  her." 

"Ah,  you  do  not  love  me!"  cried 
Damier,  and  all  his  youth  was  in  the  cry. 
"  You  sacrifice  me  with  such  composure ! 
You  give  yourself  to  have  your  life  sucked 
out  of  you  by  this  vampire  shape  of  the 
past.  And  it  is  me  you  rob !  It  is  my 
life  you  immolate,  as  well  as  your  own ! 
207 


THE   RESCUE 

What  of  my  claim  on  life  —  my  claim  on 
you?  You  have  no  conception  of  what 
you  are  to  me,  or  you  could  not  speak  of 
shutting  me  out  from  you ;  you  could  not 
think  of  sending  me  away !  You  could 
not  speak  so  —  think  so  —  if  you  loved 
me!" 

From  her  chair  she  now  looked  up  at 
him,  not  with  weariness,  with  a  look  curi- 
ously vivid  and  tender.  "  You  speak  like 
a  boy,"  she  said. 

Damier  flung  himself  on  his  knees  be- 
side her.  "  And  you  think  that  I  can  leave 
you  when  you  can  look  at  me  like  that  — 
love  me  like  that ! " 

"  Because  I  do."  She  let  him  take  her 
hands,  and  went  on,  almost  smiling  at 
him:  "Because  I  love  you  like  that,  and 
because  you  love  me  like  that,  and  be- 
cause I  am  so  much  older  than  you  —  can't 
you  feel  it  ?  how  like  a  little  boy  —  pas- 
sionate, unruly  in  his  grief — you  seem  to 
me  !  And  because,  in  spite  of  my  age  and 
your  boyishness,  we  do  yet  love  each 
other  so  greatly  that  the  very  greatness 
208 


THE   RESCUE 

of  our  love  makes  the  question  of  our  being 
together  or  apart  really  of  not  such  sig- 
nificance." 

"  Of  not  such  significance ! "  poor 
Damier  cried.  "  I  am  to  find  you  in 
heaven,  then ! " 

"  Probably."  She  did  smile  now,  but 
he  guessed  that  it  was  the  brave  smile  she 
could  summon  over  anguish.  He  guessed 
that  her  feeling  of  his  boyishness  was  less 
apparent  to  her  than  her  feeling  of  his 
power  over  her,  his  right  to  her.  She 
might  never  yield  to  the  power,  never  own 
to  the  right,  but  to  guess  that  she  felt  them 
was  assurance  enough  for  the  moment, 
and  the  pallor  of  the  face  that  smiled  at 
him  was  a  reproach  to  him. 

"No,  no,"  he  said;  "I  shall  keep  you 
there  —  and  I  shall  keep  you  here,  too. 
I  will  rescue  you.  I  will  find  out  the  way. 
And  I  will  leave  you  now  and  give  you 
peace  for  a  little  while.  You  are  terribly 
tired." 

"Terribly,"  she  assented.     "It  is  kind 
and  generous  of  you  to  go  now." 
14  209 


THE   RESCUE 

"  But  my  going  is  to  be  taken  as  no 
token  of  submission.  I  will  return." 

"To  say  good-by." 

"  So  you  say." 

"  So  you  will  do."  And  she  still  smiled, 
all  tenderness,  all  inflexibility. 

"  Never,  never,  never !  "  said  Damier. 


210 


XVII 

lAMIER,  for  his  own  part,  felt  no 
need  of  peace.  A  passionate 
protestation,  a  passionate  de- 
termination, filled  him.  At  his  hotel,  as 
if  in  answer  to  vague  plans  and  projects, 
the  figure  of  Monsieur  Daunay,  rising 
from  a  chair,  confronted  him.  From 
Monsieur  Daunay's  relief  and  alacrity  he 
guessed  that  he  had  been  waiting  there 
for  some  time  —  ever  since,  he  further 
guessed,  his  conversation  with  Claire. 

"You  have  heard?"  asked  Monsieur 
Daunay,  and  a  host  of  questions  looked 
from  his  eyes. 

"  That  you  have  proposed  to  Mademoi- 
selle Vicaud,  yes ;  and  that  she  has  an- 
swered you,  I  fear,  not  favorably ;  yes,  I 
have  heard." 

211 


THE   RESCUE 

"You  have  seen  her?" 

"  I  was  with  her  mother,  speaking  with 
her  of  it,  when  Claire  came." 

"  I  have  intruded  thus  upon  you,"  said 
Monsieur  Daunay,  "in  the  faint  hope  that 
you  might  be  able,  after  seeing  her,  to 
give  me  some  encouragement,  since  from 
her  I  could  elicit  none.  She  was  sullen, 
silent,  reproached  me  for  my  haste.  Af- 
ter all  these  years  ! "  Monsieur  Daunay 
groaned,  and  dropped  again  into  his  chair, 
folding  his  arms  and  bowing  his  head  in  a 
despairing  acquiescence  to  fate's  cruelty. 
"After  all  these  years!"  he  repeated. 

Damier  saw  down  a  long  vista  of  them, 
sunny  with  the  encouraging  smiles  of  the 
charming  Claire. 

"You  have  assured  me,"  Daunay  pres- 
ently said,  "that  you  were  not  the  cause 
of  this  change  in  Claire." 

It  was  a  rather  perplexing  question,  but 
Damier  was  able  truthfully  to  answer  it 
with :  "  I  can  again  assure  you  that  it  is 
only  through  her  relation  with  her  mother 
that  Claire  interests  me." 
212 


THE   RESCUE 

"And  so  she  has  assured  me,  again 
and  again,  and  that  all  her  affection  was 
for  me.  And  yet,  now  that  I  can  claim 
her  —  now  that  I  come,  trusting  and  hop- 
ing, she  turns  from  me  ;  she  mutters  that 
I  am  too  old  ;  not  rich  enough.  Ah,  mon 
Dieuf" 

Claire,  clearly,  Damier  also  saw,  had 
never  endangered  her  certain  hold  upon 
Monsieur  Daunay's  usefulness  by  con- 
fessing to  him  her  expectation  of  larger 
achievements.  She  would  evade  him,  and 
hold  him,  as  long  as  she  had  need  of  him. 

Part  of  her  anger  to-day  had,  no  doubt, 
been  due  to  the  fact  that  the  sudden  crisis 
had  forced  her  into  a  decisive  attitude 
toward  him  while  yet  uncertain  that  she 
could  with  safety  give  him  up.  Yet,  in- 
deed, she  had  been  able  to  avoid  absolute 
decisiveness  —  so  Monsieur  Daunay's  next 
words  proved : 

"  She  told  me  that  all  her  affection  was 

still  mine,  but  owned  to  higher  ambitions ; 

she  had  never,  she  said,  hidden  from  me 

that  she  was  ambitious,  and  life  now  was 

213 


THE   RESCUE 

opening  new  possibilities  to  her.  Could 
affection  and  ambition  be  combined,  had 
I  a  large  fortune  to  gild  my  middle  age 
and  my  unimportance,  she  would  at  once 
marry  me." 

"  She  is  utterly  unworthy  of  you,"  said 
Damier. 

At  this  a  faint,  ironic  smile  crossed  the 
Frenchman's  face.  "Ah,  mon  ami"  he 
said,  "you  need  not  tell  me  that.  If  I 
love  Claire,  do  not  imagine,  as  I  told  you 
last  night,  that  I  am  blinded  by  my  love. 
I  love  her  d'un  amour  fou  —  and  I  recog- 
nize it.  She  possesses  me ;  she  can  do 
what  she  will  with  me ;  I  should  forgive 
her  anything.  But  I  know  that  I  am  a 
captive  —  and  to  no  noble  captor." 

"  Just  heavens !  "  Damier  broke  out, 
indifferent,  in  his  indignant  pity,  to  his 
own  interests,  "shake  off  this  obsession  — 
and  her  with  it !  Leave  her ;  go  away ; 
do  not  see  her  again. .  What  misery  if  you 
were  to  marry  her  !  " 

"  What  will  you  ?  I  adore  her ! "  His 
helplessness  seemed  final.  He  presently 
214 


THE   RESCUE 

went  on:  "But  I  came  to-day  to  ask  for 
your  help.  You  occupy  a  peculiar  posi- 
tion toward  Madame  Vicaud  and  her 
daughter;  you  have  influence  with  them 
both.  Use  it  in  my  favor,  I  beg  of  you. 
Intercede  for  me." 

"  Any  influence  I  have  shall,  I  promise 
you,  be  devoted  to  that  purpose.  I  can 
hardly  hope  that  your  hopes  will  be  real- 
ized ;  their  realization  could  not  be  for 
your  happiness.  Pardon  me,  but  have 
you  never  suspected  that  Claire  is  like  her 
father  —  that  she,  too,  is  a  miserable 
creature  ?  " 

For  a  long  moment  Daunay  looked  at 
him. 

"  She  is  like  her  father,"  he  then  said ; 
"but  have  you  never  suspected,  or,  rather, 
do  you  not  now  see,  that,  because  of  that, 
my  claim  is  all  the  stronger  ?  What  man 
not  knowing  it,  marrying  her  in  ignorance 
of  it,  would  not  repent  ?  I  should  never 
repent.  She  is  like  him,  if  you  will,  but 
she  is,  irrevocably,  the  woman  I  love. 
More  than  that,  she  is  the  child  I  love; 

215 


THE   RESCUE 

I  have  watched  her  grow  up.  From  the 
beginning,  she  has  been  ma  petite  Claire  ; 
so  she  will  be  to  the  end  —  whatever  that 
end  may  be." 

Monsieur  Daunay  spoke  with  a  pro- 
found feeling,  a  profound  sincerity  that 
the  emotional  tremor  of  his  voice,  the 
emotional  tears  in  his  eyes,  only  made 
the  more  characteristic  and  touching  to 
Damier.  He  got  up  and  grasped  the 
Frenchman's  hand  in  silence. 

A  knock  at  the  door  broke  upon  this 
compact  of  sympathy  ;  a  gargon  brought  a 
card  to  Damier  and  said  that  the  lady 
waited  for  him  in  the  salon  below.  The 
card  was  Lady  Surfex's,  and  on  it  was 
written : 

Must  see  you  at  once,  on  most  important 
matter  concerning  Madame  V. 

"Wait  for  me  here,"  Damier  said  to 
Monsieur  Daunay.  "  This  may  concern 
you  as  well  as  me." 

He  found  Lady  Surfex  in  the  drearily 
216 


THE    RESCUE 

gaudy  salon,  her  face  ominous  of  ill  tid- 
ings. 

"My  dear  Eustace,"  she  said, —  they 
were  alone,  yet  her  voice  was  discreetly 
low, —  "a  horrid  thing  has  happened  — 
or  is  going  to.  I  thought  it  best  to  come 
to  you  at  once.  Claire  Vicaud  runs  away 
to-night  with  Lord  Epsil." 

And,  as  he  stared  at  her  in  stricken 
silence : 

"  I  found  it  out  by  chance.  I  was  at 
Mrs.  Wallingham's.  They  were  there  — 
Mademoiselle  Vicaud  and  Lord  Epsil.  I 
watched  them,  indeed,  with  some  uneasi- 
ness, as  they  sat,  with  ostentatious  retire- 
ment, in  a  dim  corner.  I  saw  them  go  out 
together.  Do  you  know,  Eustace,  my 
distrust  of  that  girl  and  of  that  man  —  in 
justice  to  her,  I  must  say  it  —  was  so  great 
that  I  really  was  on  the  point  of  following 
them  —  asking  her  to  let  me  drive  her 
home ;  but  I  hesitated,  people  I  knew  came 
in,  I  had  to  speak  to  them,  and  so  some 
time  went  by.  Then,  about  half  an  hour 
after  they  were  gone,  Mrs.  Wallingham 
217 


THE   RESCUE 

came  to  me  and  whispered  that  a  maid  — 
a  discreet  English  person  who  was  dispens- 
ing tea  in  the  dining-room  —  had  over- 
heard Lord  Epsil  saying  to  Mademoiselle 
Vicaud  that  they  would  take  the  night  train 
to  Dinard,  and  that  his  yacht  was  there. 
The  woman  came  at  once  to  her  mistress. 
And  now,  Eustace,  what  can  be  done  to 
save  her  ?  "  They  both  knew  to  whom  the 
pronoun  referred ;  a  conventional  saving 
of  Claire  had  significance  only  in  reference 
to  her  mother. 

Damier  was  steadying  his  thoughts. 

"The  night  train."     He  looked  at  his 
watch.     "There  is  time,"  he  said. 

"  For  what,  Eustace  ?  " 

"  There  is  only  one  chance.  One  can't 
appeal  to  her  heart,  or  conscience  —  or 
even,  it  seems,  to  her  ambition ;  but  one 
might  to  her  greed  —  offer  her  some 
firmer,  surer  competence.  I  had  thought  of 
it  dimly  before.  I  could  catch  that  Dinard 
train  —  go  with  them  —  find  some  oppor- 
tunity for  seeing  her  alone  before  they  reach 
Dinard  —  or  before  they  reach  the  yacht." 
218 


THE   RESCUE 

"  But,  Eustace,"  her  helpless  wonder 
reproached  his  baseless  optimism,  "what 
could  you  do  ?  You  can't  beard  the  man  ; 
she  is  of  age  —  goes  willingly.  What  a 
situation ! " 

"  I  could  offer  her  half  of  my  income  for 
life,  if  she  would  consent  to  return  with  me, 
and  to  marry  a  man  who  is  devoted  to  her 
—  who,  I  think,  would  forgive  anything." 

"Eustace,  it  would  leave  you  almost 
poor ! " 

"  Not  quite,  since  the  half  is  large 
enough,  I  trust,  to  tempt  her !  The  whole 
would  not  be  too  much  to  give  to  save  her 
from  this  final  blow." 

"  But  can  you  —  this  man  —  will  he  ?  " 

"  He  is  up-stairs.  I  will  see  him,  and 
start  at  once." 

"And,  Eustace — wait;  can't  we  keep  it 
from  her — can't  we  think  of  some  good  lie?" 

He  had  almost  to  smile  at  her  intently 
thoughtful  face. 

"What  possible  lie  can  we  think  of? 
Claire  will  not  come  back  to-night  —  she 
must  know,  sooner  or  later." 
219 


THE   RESCUE 

"  But  it  is  for  to-night  I  want  to  spare 
her.  Ah,  I  have  it — no  lie,  either.  I 
merely  send  a  telegram,  '  Claire  may  not 
return  to-night:  will  explain  to-morrow,' 
signed  with  my  name  ;  she  will  think  Claire 
is  passing  the  night  with  me;  and  then, 
you  know,  the  girl  may,  at  the  last 
moment,  decide  not  to  go." 

Damier  had  to  yield  to  her  eagerness. 
Up-stairs  the  words  he  had  with  Daunay 
were  short,  bitter,  decisive.  Averting  his 
eyes  from  the  unfortunate  man's  face,  he 
put  the  case  before  him.  He  turned  his 
back  on  him  when  he  had  spoken,  went  to 
the  window,  left  him  to  an  unobserved 
quaffing  of  the  poisonous  cup. 

Monsieur  Daunay's  first  words  showed 
that  he  had  quaffed  it  bravely  and  that  his 
reason  still  stood  firm. 

"  She  must  be  mad,"  he  said ;  "  it  is  not 
like  her." 

"  No,  it  is  not  like  her.     And  I  may  tell 
you  that  I  suspect  revenge  to  be  in  part 
her  motive.     She  had  a  terrible  quarrel 
with  her  mother  this  afternoon." 
220 


THE   RESCUE 

Damier  turned  now  and  faced  him. 

"And  now,  Monsieur  Daunay,  are  you 
willing  to  save  her  ?  " 

"  I  am  ready,"  the  Frenchman  said 
quietly;  "with  your  help,  I  am  ready  to 
save  her." 

"  I  go  at  once,  and  with  that  assurance, 
then?" 

"  Yes ;  I  am  ready.  Tell  her  that.  Tell 
her,  too,  that  if  her  mother  will  not  receive 
her,  she  will  find  a  home  at  my  cousin's 
until  our  marriage  can  take  place." 

"Her  mother  will  receive  her,"  said 
Damier.  "As  you  have  forgiven,  so  she 
will  forgive." 


221 


XVIII 

'HE  long,  hot,  rushing  hours  had 
passed,  for  Damier,  in  a  sort  of 
stupor,  the  anaesthesia  of  one 
fixed  idea.  In  the  stuffy  railway-carriage, 
his  eyes  on  the  dark  square  of  the  open 
window,  where  one  saw  vaguely  the  starlit 
depths  of  a  midsummer  night,  he  thought, 
with  the  odd  detachment  of  a  crisis,  of  the 
past  day:  the  sunny  morning  walk  with 
Claire  —  green  leaves,  purple  shadows; 
the  afternoon's  supreme  moment  —  a  deep 
pulse  of  wonder  in  his  heart,  hardly  to 
be  seen  in  images;  Lady  Surfex  among 
the  palms  and  monstrous  gilded  pottery 
of  the  hotel  salon ;  Monsieur  Daunay's 
quiet,  white  face ;  the  crowded  Paris  rail- 
way-station, and  the  glimpse  he  had 
caught  in  it  of  Claire  and  Lord  Epsil. 
222 


THE   RESCUE 

This  most  recent  impression  was  also  the 
most  vivid,  threw  all  the  others  into  a 
blurred  background  where,  with  a  new 
look  of  woe,  only  Madame  Vicaud's  face 
glimmered  clearly. 

The  enforced  pause  at  the  height  of  his 
resolution  made  both  the  past  and  the 
future  half  illusory.  The  present,  with 
not  its  usual  flashing  impermanence,  had, 
for  hours,  been  the  same,  had  stopped,  as 
it  were,  at  an  instant  of  vigilant  alertness, 
and  held  him  in  it  rigidly.  Until  the 
object  of  that  vigilance,  that  alertness,  were 
attained,  he  could  not  look  forward  or 
make  projects.  The  chance  for  seeing 
Claire  alone  could  not  come,  probably, 
until  Dinard  was  reached.  There,  in  the 
hurry  of  arrival,  he  might  snatch  a  word 
with  her.  It  would  only  be  necessary  to 
speak  the  word,  to  put  the  alternative  be- 
fore her.  Entreaty  would  be  useless ;  all 
the  argument  possible  was  the  chink  of 
gold  in  two  hands ;  all  the  hope,  that  his 
chink  might  be  the  louder. 

Shortly  after  ten  o'clock  the  train  drew 
223 


THE   RESCUE 

up  in  the  Rennes  station.  Damier  had 
let  no  such  opportunity  escape  him,  and 
he  again  stepped  from  his  compartment 
and  stood  looking  toward  the  part  of  the 
train  where  he  knew  were  Claire  and  her 
cavalier.  As  he  looked  he  saw  the  tall 
figure  of  the  Englishman  stroll  across  the 
platform  to  the  refreshment-buffet.  The 
light  fell  full  on  his  long,  smooth,  pink 
face, —  a  papier-mache  pink, —  on  his  long, 
high  nose  and  whity-brown  mustache. 
Damier  darted  forward.  In  an  instant  he 
was  at  the  door,  still  ajar,  of  the  compart- 
ment that  Lord  Epsil  had  just  left.  He 
saw,  under  the  yellow  glare  of  the  lamp,  a 
confusion  of  traveling-bags,  rugs,  band- 
boxes (Claire  had  evidently  shopped), 
newspapers  and  magazines ;  a  large  box 
of  bonbons  lay  on  a  seat,  its  contents 
half  rifled,  its  papers  strewing  the  floor; 
and,  settled  back  in  a  corner,  her  shoulders 
huddled  together  in  a  graceful  sleepiness, 
was  Claire.  A  long  silk  traveling-cloak 
fell  over  her  white  dress ;  the  winged  white 
hat  of  the  morning  was  pushed  a  little  to 
224 


THE   RESCUE 

one  side  as  her  head  leaned  against  the 
cushioned  carriage ;  a  drooping  curve  of 
loosened  hair,  shining  in  the  light  like 
molten  brass,  fell  over  her  cheek  and  neck ; 
her  profile,  half  hidden,  was  at  once  petu- 
lant and  relaxed  with  drowsiness. 

Damier  did  not  hesitate.  He  sprang 
into  the  carriage.  Not  touching  the  girl, 
he  leaned  over  her.  "  Claire,"  he  said. 

In  an  instant  she  had  started  into  erect- 
ness,  staring  stupefied,  too  stupefied  for 
shame  or  anger. 

"  I  have  only  a  moment,"  said  Damier, 
speaking  with  a  clear-cut  dryness  of  utter- 
ance. "  If  you  will  come  back  with  me, 
and  marry  Monsieur  Daunay, —  he  knows 
all  and  will  marry  you,  —  half  of  my  in- 
come is  yours  for  life." 

After  the  first  stare  she  had  blinked  in 
opening  her  eyes  to  the  light  and  to  the 
sudden  apparition ;  the  eyes  were  now 
fixed  widely  on  him  ;  they  looked  like  two 
deep,  black  holes. 

"  It  is  a  bribe,"  she  said. 

"  Call  it  so  if  you  will." 
15  225 


THE   RESCUE 

"  It  shows  your  scorn  for  me." 

"  Comprehension  of  you,  rather." 

"And  if  I  don't?" 

"If  you  don't  I  will  challenge  this  man 
—  and  fight  him.  I  am  an  excellent  fencer, 
an  excellent  shot." 

She  looked  at  him,  half  scoffing,  yet 
half  believing.  "  Englishmen  don't  fight 
duels." 

"This  one  will." 

"  He  might  kill  you." 

"I  might  kill  him;  you  would  have  to 
take  the  risk." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "  Bien! 
I  understand,  too.  I  will  fulfil  myself." 
She  half  rose,  then  sank  again.  "  How 
much?"  He  mentioned  the  sum  —  not  a 
small  one.  "Make  it  two  thirds,"  said 
Claire,  keeping  her  dilated  eyes  upon  him 
with  an  effect  of  final  and  defiant  revela- 
tion. 

"Two  thirds,  then,"  he  assented,  in  the 
steadied  voice  of  one  who  does  not  dare 
hurry  indecision.  Yet,  even  now,  she  did 
not  rise. 

226 


THE    RESCUE 

"  One  more  condition,  please.  I  do  not 
see  my  mother  again.  Let  us  say,  if  you 
like,  that  I  am  ashamed  to  meet  her." 

"  She  has  not  been  told  —  of  this." 

"  Yes,  she  has,"  said  Claire.  "  I  wrote 
and  told  her."  There  was  the  satisfaction 
of  achievement  in  the  way  she  said  it. 
"  Oh,  yes  ;  she  knows." 

"Yet,  even  after  that, —  your  ven- 
geance, I  suppose, —  I  hardly  dare  make 
the  promise  for  her, —  she  can  forgive  — 
even  this." 

"Ah,"  and  the  hoarse  note  was  in 
Claire's  voice,  "but  I  can't  take  forgive- 
ness from  her.  I  have  left  the  world 
where  such  episodes  as  this  need  forgive- 
ness. Tolerance  is  now  all  that  I  will 
endure  —  and  she  will  never  tolerate.  No ; 
I  will  not  come  with  you ;  I  will  not  return 
to  Monsieur  Daunay  and  to  respectability 
—  unless  you  promise  that  I  shall  never 
see  her  again." 

"  I  promise  it,  then,  if  it  is  the  condition." 

"You  accept?  Bienf"  Claire  sprang 
up,  and  ripping  an  illustration  from  a  mag- 
227 


THE   RESCUE 

azine,  she  scribbled  on  the  blank  back, 
"Have  decided,  after  all,  that  I  won't 
come,"  transfixed  it  with  a  hat-pin  to  the 
cushioned  back  of  Lord  Epsil's  vacated 
seat,  then,  as  rapidly,  reached  for  two  of 
the  bandboxes,  pulled  them,  rattling,  from 
the  racks,  stooped  and  jerked  a  large 
pasteboard  box  from  under  a  seat,  and, 
encumbered  as  she  already  was,  caught 
up  from  among  the  rugs  and  bags  several 
smaller  packages,  dexterously  holding 
them  to  her  sides  with  her  elbows. 

Damier,  who  had  stared,  hardly  com- 
prehending, gripped  her  wrist.  "  Put 
them  down."  She  gazed  round  in  sin- 
cere amazement;  then,  with  quite  a  hu- 
morous laugh,  dropped  the  booty.  "  I 
really  forgot !  No,  it  would  n't  be  fair 
play,  would  it  ? —  though,  I  confess,  I 
should  like  to  take  a  little  vengeance ;  he 
has  irritated  me,  been  too  complacent, 
too  assured.  This,  too  ?  "  She  touched 
the  silk  traveling-cloak.  Damier,  without 
speaking,  stripped  it  off  her ;  then,  catch- 
ing her  by  the  arm,  he  almost  dragged  her 
228 


THE   RESCUE 

from  the  carriage,  for  her  feet  stumbled 
among  the  dressing-cases  and  the  aban- 
doned boxes. 

He  found,  as  they  almost  ran  along  the 
dim  platform  across  to  the  one  opposite, 
and  as  he  pushed  her  into  a  compart- 
ment of  the  Paris  train  that  stood  there, 
that  she  was  laughing.  The  adventure  of 
it,  the  excitement,  Lord  Epsil's  discomfit- 
ure, appealed,  evidently,  to  her  sense  of 
mirth. 

There  were  other  occupants  of  the  car- 
riage, and  Damier  was  thankful  for  it. 
He  did  not  want  to  talk  to  Claire.  To 
reproach  her  would  make  him  as  ridiculous 
as  beating  a  tin  pan  in  the  expectation  of 
response  other  than  a  mocking  cachinna- 
tion ;  not  to  reproach  might  seem  to  con- 
done by  comprehension.  Yet,  as  she  sank 
back  into  a  corner,  settled  her  shoulder  in 
it,  he  saw  that  there  was  emotion  under 
the  laughter,  that  it  was  not  only  the  tin- 
pan  rattle.  He  could  interpret  it  as  almost 
a  regret  —  a  regret  for  something  against 
.which  she  had  always  rebelled,  from  which 
16  229 


THE   RESCUE 

she  had  now  finally  freed  herself,  a  sud- 
den realization  that  forever  she  had  lost 
the  standing  upon  which  he  had  found 
her.  Yet,  over  this  trace  of  emotion  and 
suffering,  that,  to  Damier,  was  more  pite- 
ous than  anything  he  had  yet  seen  in  her, 
she  smiled  at  him,  with  half-dropped  lids. 
It  was  the  look,  with  her  a  new  one,  of 
brazening  a  shame.  Already  her  nature 
had  retaliated  upon  the  wrong  she  had 
done  it  by  fixing  in  her  face  a  more  appa- 
rent ugliness  of  expression.  She  glanced 
round  at  the  sleepy,  respectable  occupants 
of  the  carriage,  their  sleepiness,  however, 
keeping  an  eye  upon  this  startling  young 
person  in  her  white  dress. 

"  Before  we  relapse  into  an  irrevocable 
silence," she  said,  "let  me  inform  you  —  it 
will  complete  your  evil  opinion  of  me  — 
that  I  did  n't  really  care  about  him  ;  I  cared 
for  his  caring  about  me  —  though  at  mo- 
ments even  that  fatigued  me,  iltriembetait 
quelquefois;  but  then,  I  was  glad  to  be 
revenged." 

"  Upon  whom  ?     For  what  ?  " 
230 


THE   RESCUE 

"Upon  you  both  —  for  making  me  feel 
that  I  was  not  of  your  world." 

"  We  did  not  make  you  feel  it,  Claire." 

For  some  moments  they  were  silent,  as 
the  train  moved  slowly  from  the  station, 
and  then  she  said  : 

"  Where  will  you  take  me  ? " 

"  To  his  cousin's,  Mademoiselle  Dau- 
nay's.  I  have  arranged  all  with  him." 

A  look,  almost  tremulous  under  its  at- 
tempt at  a  light  sneer,  crossed  her  face. 

"  What  forgiveness !  //  est  un  peu 
lac  he,  vous  savez" 

"Try,  Claire,  to  deserve  such  touching 
Idchete" 

Again  Claire  was,  for  some  moments, 
silent ;  then,  yawning  slightly,  yet,  again 
his  acuteness  guessed,  affectedly,  she  said, 
settling  her  shoulder  more  decisively  in 
her  corner : 

"  There  is  the  more  hope  for  my  deserv- 
ing it  since  now  I  am  rich.  You  may 
make  your  mind  easy  about  my  future.  I 
have  got  all  that  I  ever  really  wanted."  It 
was  the  new  and  brazen  note  over  the  new 
231 


THE   RESCUE 

shame ;  but  as  he  looked  at  the  face  that 
first  pretended  to  sleep,  and  that  eventu- 
ally did  sleep,  was  not  the  brass  the  curi- 
ous, anomalous  shield  that  nature  put 
around  something  growing  —  around  a 
soul  that  at  last,  with  a  faint,  half-conscious 
thrill,  felt  upon  it  the  awakening  breath  of 
suffering  ? 


232 


XIX 

>HE  morning  was  still  fresh  when 
Damier  walked  down  the  Rue 

B next   day.     Clear   early 

sunlight  fell  upon  the  houses  opposite 
Madame  Vicaud's,  glittering  on  their  upper 
windows,  gilding  their  austerity ;  but  the 
depths  of  the  street  were  still  cool  and 
unshadowed. 

The  concierge  was  sweeping  out  the 
courtyard,  and  fixed  on  Damier  a  cogi- 
tating eye ;  his  early  visit  and  Claire's 
absence  were,  no  doubt,  to  her  vigilant 
curiosity,  symptoms  of  something  unusual. 
The  cogitation,  though  mingled  with  relief, 
was  repeated  at  the  door  above  in  Ange- 
lique's  look.  She  was  plainly  glad  to  see 
him.  Madame  Vicaud  had  sat  up  all  night, 
she  volunteered,  quite  as  if  accepting  him 

233 


THE   RESCUE 

as  a  member  of  the  family,  privileged  to 
confidences ;  she  thought  that  madame 
had  hoped  for  mademoiselle's  return,  and 
she  feared  that  the  letter  that  had  arrived 
from  mademoiselle  an  hour  before  had 
much  distressed  madame.  Perhaps  Mon- 
sieur Damier  could  persuade  her  to  have 
some  coffee ;  she  had  eaten  no  dinner  the 
night  before,  nor  breakfast  this  morning. 
Damier  promised  to  persuade,  and  Ange- 
lique  ushered  him  into  the  salon. 

He  had  never  before  seen  it  flooded 
with  sunlight, —  for  this  was  his  first  morn- 
ing visit, —  and  the  windows  overlooking 
the  garden  faced  a  radiant  sky. 

His  eyes  were  dazzled,  and  the  dark 
figure  that  rose  to  meet  him  seemed  to 
waver  in  the  light. 

The  calamity  that  had  befallen  her,  at 
variance  with  the  joyous  setting  in  which 
he  found  her,  showed  in  her  white  face  — 
her  eyes,  still,  as  it  were,  astonished  from 
the  shock,  dark  with  misery  and  a  night 
of  watching.  On  the  table  near  which 
she  had  been  sitting  were  a  burnt-out  can- 

234 


THE   RESCUE 

die,  Lady  Surfex's  telegram  of  the  night 
before,  and  a  letter,  opening  its  large  dis- 
playal  of  vigorous  handwriting  to  the  re- 
vealing day:  Claire's  handwriting,  Claire's 
letter  of  farewell.  Damier  took  Madame 
Vicaud's  hands  and  looked  at  her;  the 
astonishment  of  her  eyes  hurt  him  more 
than  their  dry  misery :  after  all,  then,  she 
had  been  so  unprepared. 

"I  know  all,"  she  said. 

"  Not  all." 

"  She  has  left  me  —  with  that  man ;  she 
has  written  to  me." 

"  Not  all,"  he  repeated. 

"  Is  there  more  ?  There  cannot  be 
worse." 

"  There  is  better.     She  is  safe." 

"  Safe  ?  Do  you  mean  that  she  did  not 
go?" 

Her  eyes,  with  their  sudden  leap  of  light, 
burned  him. 

"  No ;  she  did  go.  But  I  followed  them  ; 
I  brought  her  back." 

"Back  to  me?  She  was  frightened  at 
what  she  had  done  ? "  she  again  asked,  her 

235 


THE   RESCUE 

eyes  still  burning,  but  more  dimly,  upon 
him.  His  eyes  dropped  before  them ; 
looking  down  at  the  wasted  hands  he 
held,  he  said : 

"  No,  dearest,  not  to  you  —  to  Monsieur 
Daunay,  She  is  to  marry  him.  She  is 
with  his  cousin  now." 

Her  vigil  had  evidently  been  tearless ; 
even  the  arrival  that  morning  of  the  fatal 
letter  had  not  melted  her  frozen  terror. 
But  now,  as  she  looked  speechlessly  at 
him,  the  long  rise  of  a  sob  heaved  her 
breast ;  her  hands  slid  from  his ;  she  sank 
into  a  chair,  and  resting  her  crossed  arms 
upon  the  table,  she  bent  her  head  upon 
them  and  wept  and  shuddered.  In  the 
sunny  stillness  of  the  room  the  young  man 
stood  beside  her.  He  felt  an  alien  before 
this  intimate,  maternal  anguish.  She  did 
not  weep  for  long.  She  presently  sat 
upright,  dried  her  eyes,  and  pushed  back 
her  hair,  keeping  her  hand  pressed  tightly, 
for  a  moment,  on  her  forehead,  as  if  in  an 
effort  to  regain  her  long  habit  of  self-con- 
trol; and  as  if  to  gain  time,  to  hide  the 
236 


THE    RESCUE 

painful  effort  from  him,  she  pointed  to 
Claire's  letter.  "  Read  it,"  she  said. 

It  was  Claire's  most  callous,  most  ugly 
self;  its  passion  of  hatred  and  revenge 
hardly  masked  itself  in  the  metallic  tone 
of  mockery.  They  were  both  well  rid  of 
her  —  her  dear  Mamma  and  her  dear 
Mamma's  suitor.  They  were  far  too  good 
for  her,  and  she  justified  them  by  showing 
them  how  far  too  bad  she  was  for  them. 
Pursuit  and  reproaches  were  useless.  She 
feared  that  her  dear  Mamma's  ermine  robe 
of  respectability  must  be  permanently 
spotted  by  a  daughter  notoriously  naughty 
—  for  she  did  not  intend  to  hide  her  new 
situation.  But  perhaps  the  daughter 
could  be  lived  down  as  the  daughter's 
father  had  been.  And  on,  and  on — short 
phrases,  lava-jets  from  the  seething  vol- 
cano of  base  vulgarity ;  Damier  felt  them 
burn  his  own  cheek  while  he  read. 

Madame  Vicaud's  eyes  were  on  his  when 
he  raised  them ;  but  quickly  looking  away 
from  him,  she  said:  ''It  came  this  morn- 
ing. Last  night  I  could  not  understand 

237 


THE   RESCUE 

that  telegram;  I  could  not  believe  that 
she  would  not  return.  I  felt  that  some- 
thing was  being  hidden  from  me ;  it  was 
like  battling  in  a  stifling  black  air.  And 
then  —  this  came."  He  had  laid  the  letter 
beside  her,  and  she  touched  it  with  her 
finger,  as  if  it  had  been  a  snake.  "  This  — 
this  end  of  all !  " 

"  She  is  safe,"  Damier  repeated  rather 
helplessly. 

"Safe! "the  mother  echoed.  Leaning 
her  head  against  the  chair-back,  she  closed 
her  eyes.  Lovely  and  dignified  even  in 
her  disgrace,  nothing  could  smirch  and 
nothing  could  abase  her;  she  had  never 
looked  so  noble  as  at  this  moment  of 
dreadful  defeat  and  overthrow.  "And 
how  have  you  saved  her  ? "  she  asked. 
"What  did  Monsieur  Daunay  have  to  offer 
—  what  did  you  have  to  offer  —  to  bring 
her  back — since  it  was  not  repentance? 
It  was  not  repentance  ?  " 

"  No  ;  but  I  believe  that  she  was  glad  to 
come.  I  —  I  dowered  Claire,"  said  Da- 
mier, after  a  momentary  pause. 

238 


THE   RESCUE 

Madame  Vicaud,  still  keeping  her  eyes 
closed,  was  silent.  He  leaned  over  her 
and  took  her  hand.  "  All  that  I  have  is 
yours.  You  dowered  her,  let  us  say." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  dowering  her  ?  " 
she  asked. 

"  I  have  given  her  two  thirds  of  my 
income  for  life." 

Her  hand  in  his  was  chill  and  passive ; 
he  felt  in  her  the  cold  shudder  of  shame. 

"Ah,"  he  said,  "from  me — from  me 
you  do  not  resent  such  saving  ?  " 

"  Resent  ?  —  from  you  ? "  she  said 
gently.  "  No,  no ;  it  is  of  her  I  am  think- 
ing. No ;  you  did  well,  very  well  to  save 
her  —  if  we  may  call  it  saving.  You  have 
washed  the  spots  from  my  respectability. 
We  both  know  the  value  of  such  washing ; 
but  it  is  best —  best  to  have  us  all  respec- 
table,"—  a  bitter  smile  touched  her  lips, — 
"since  it  is  that  we  prize  so.  And  were 
there  no  other  inducements  ?  " 

"There  was  a  condition,"  —  he  had  to 
nerve  himself  to  the  speaking  of  it, — 
"  that  she  did  not  see  you  again.  She 

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THE   RESCUE 

has,  by  her  own  wish,  broken  the  bond 
between  you.  She  has  left  your  life." 

Madame  Vicaud  clenched  her  hands, 
and  her  chin  trembled. 

"Yet  —  let  me  tell  you,"  he  said,  "I 
believe  that  there  is  more  hope  for  Claire 
so  left  in  the  evil  and  abasement  she  has 
made  about  herself  than  if  she  were  to 
have  remained  with  you  ;  all  the  forces  of 
her  nature  were  engaged  in  resistance,  or 
in  a  pretended  submission  that  bided  its 
time.  Now  she  must  do  battle  with  the 
world  on  a  level  where  life  will  teach  her 
lessons  she  can  understand.  She  has  sev- 
ered herself  completely  from  you  —  she 
has  completely  fulfilled  herself.  Some  new 
blossoming  may  follow ;  who  knows  ?  " 

"  But  no  blossoming  for  me.  I  shall 
not  see  it,"  said  Madame  Vicaud.  "  My 
life  has  been  useless." 

Useless  ?  He  wondered  over  her  past, 
her  long  efforts,  this  wreck. 

Could  goodness,  however  clear-sighted, 
however  divine  in  its  comprehension  and 
pity,  prevent  evil  from  working  itself  out, 
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THE   RESCUE 

fulfilling  itself?    Was  not  its  working  out 
perhaps  its  salvation  ? 

"  How  can  you  tell?"  he  said.  "You 
have  done  your  work  for  her." 

"  I  have  done  nothing  for  her.  Every- 
thing has  failed."  Still,  with  closed  eyes, 
she  leaned  her  head  against  the  chair,  and 
slow  tears  fell  down  her  cheeks. 

"  You  have  fulfilled  yourself  toward  her; 
that  is  not  failure.  You  have  fought  your 
fight.  Surely  it  is  the  fighting,  and  not 
its  result,  that  makes  success.  And  can 
you  say  that  everything  has  failed  —  when 
you  still  have  me  to  live  for  ?  Claire  has 
gone  out  of  your  life.  She  has  shut  the 
door  on  you.  She  has  left  you,  and  — 
oh,  dearest,  dearest,  she  has  left  you  to 
me!" 

He  stood  before  her,  looking  at  her  with 
faithful  eyes.  His  love  for  her  made  no 
menace  to  her  grief;  it  did  not  jar  upon 
her  sorrow ;  rather  it  was  with  her  in  it  all, 
it  could  not:  be  separated  from  it  —  as  he 
could  not  be  separated  from  any  part  of 
her  life. 

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THE   RESCUE 

"You  are  alone  now,"  he  said,  "and  I 
am  alone." 

"No,"  —  she  put  her  hand  out  to  him, 
—  "  no ;  we  are  not  alone." 

"Then  —  "  The  air  was  golden,  and  in 
the  open  window,  white  flowers,  set  there, 
dazzled  against  the  sky.  This  day  of  sun- 
light and  disaster  must  symbolize  the  past 
and  the  future,  as  her  eyes,  with  their  silent, 
solemn  assent,  her  face,  so  sweet  and  so 
sorrowful.  She  rose  ;  he  drew  her  toward 
him.  But  then,  as  though  another  conse- 
cration than  embrace  and  kiss  were  needed 
for  this  strange  betrothal,  she  walked  with 
him,  holding  his  hand,  to  the  window, 
where  the  white  flowers  dazzled  in  the 
sun.  She  looked  at  the  flowers,  at  the 
trees,  at  the  splendid  serenity  of  the  morn- 
ing sky,  softly  breathing  the  clear,  radiant 
air  —  as  though  in  "  a  peace  out  of  pain." 

"We  will  go  away,"  said  Damier,  who 
looked  at  her ;  and,  despite  his  sorrowing 
for  her,  the  day  seemed  to  him  full  of 
wings  and  music.  "  I  do  not  want  to  see 
Paris  again,  do  you  ?  And  this  will  be  our 
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THE   RESCUE 

last  memory  of  it  —  these  flowers,  this 
garden,  this  sky,  that  we  look  at  together. 
We  will  think  of  it  so,  without  pain  al- 
most, in  a  new,  new  life." 

"  A  new  life,"  she  repeated  gently  and 
vaguely.  Lifting  his  hand,  she  kissed  it. 
"  You  have  rescued  me  from  the  old  one. 
You  are  my  angel  of  resurrection,"  she 
said. 

Yet  that  the  future  was  dim  to  her, 
except  through  his  faith  in  it, —  that, 
indeed,  it  could  never  become  an  unshad- 
owed brightness, —  he  knew,  as,  leaning 
against  him,  needing  protection  from  her 
bitter  thoughts,  she  murmured  in  the 
anguish  of  her  desolate  and  bereaved 
motherhood :  "  Oh — but  my  child !  " 


243 


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